Turkish prosecutor indicted a public school teacher for taking trips abroad

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

A prosecutor in Turkey indicted a public school teacher for her alleged links to a group that is critical of the government and cited her trips abroad as evidence of terrorism in yet another instance of the blatant abuse of the criminal justice system in the authoritarian regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

According to court papers obtained by Nordic Monitor, 44-year-old biology teacher Bedriye Demirkan was indicted by prosecutor İlteriş Altıntaş over her alleged ties to the Gülen movement, a group that is opposed to the Erdoğan government. To support the charges in the indictment, the prosecutor listed Demirkan’s travels abroad without explaining the reason for the trips or how traveling to other countries could be construed as a crime.

In her statement to the police before the charges were filed, Demirkan explained in detail about her trips to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the US and Cyprus and said she purchased tickets from a travel agency for group sightseeing to visit historic sites and landmarks. She also said she traveled twice to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage and visited the Muslim holy sites in Mecca and Medina.

Nevertheless, the prosecutor submitted her travels abroad as evidence of criminal activity without bothering to go into detail about the reasons or destinations for such trips or how those trips were connected to the terrorism of which Demirkan was accused.

Parts of the indictment that lists a public school teacher’s foreign travels as criminal activity: 

The teacher’s case is certainly not an isolated one in Turkey’s abusive criminal justice system, manipulated by the government to punish critics. In many criminal cases launched nationwide against government opponents, merely traveling overseas was often cited as adequate reason to indict, try and convict innocent people.

Demirkan had worked for various public schools for 16 years before she was summarily dismissed from her job along with nearly 150,000 other public employees as part of an unprecedented purge initiated by the Erdoğan government in 2016. The government also cancelled her teaching license as well as that of tens of thousands of other teachers, preventing them from working even in private schools or tutoring centers.

She was dealt another blow when her husband Özen, who had been suffering from lymphoma since 2007, passed away in May 2020. She was left alone to take care of their three children, one with a serious illness. Her brother was helping her survive under challenging circumstances.

A review of her case file also indicated that her membership in Aktif Eğitim-Sen, a union for people who work in the education sector, was also presented as criminal evidence against her. Aktif and many other unions were summarily and arbitrarily shut down by the Erdoğan government in 2016 because of their links to government critic the Gülen movement.

The government started going after administrators and members of these shuttered unions, leveling serious charges against them on bogus evidence, indicting and trying them in courts overseen by partisan judges.

Demirkan’s membership in an NGO called the Association for GAP Education Volunteers (GAP Eğitim Gönüllüleri Derneği), her use of the ByLock messaging app and her children’s enrollment in Gülen-affiliated schools were also added to what the prosecutor claimed was enough evidence to lock her up for many years to come.

Demirkan was detained on July 29, 2021 and formally arrested two weeks later by the Şanlıurfa 4th Criminal Court of Peace despite her pleas about the need to take care of her children, one of whom had been suffering from a severe illness since 2011. She herself faces complications from a disease, according to her lawyers’ defense statement.

Judge Serdar Sezer Mert did not even bother at her arraignment to review medical reports about her child and herself that were submitted to the court for consideration of lenience by her lawyers, who filed a motion for her release pending trial.

Bedriye Demirkan’s defense statement that explains the reasons for her travels abroad: 

The indictment against her was filed on September 1, 2021, and the second hearing was held on November 15. Her appeals for release were repeatedly denied. The next hearing is scheduled for January 17, 2022.

The statement she gave to the police and court transcripts show that she was advised to take advantage of Article 221 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), called the “active repentance” law, which reduces or nullifies jail sentences of suspects who cooperate with investigators and provide information on the group they are charged with being connected to.

She informed on other alleged Gülenists and wanted to benefit from the law. But even that was not enough for her release as the prosecutor asked for the continuation of her imprisonment, and the panel of judges, composed of İsmail Çolak, Sena Nur Erdem and Rabia Türköz, at the Şanlıurfa 2nd High Criminal Court agreed to keep her in jail.

Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a group that is led by US-based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a coup against his government, Erdoğan accused the movement of being behind the graft probes, labeled it as a terrorist organization and launched an unprecedented crackdown on its members. He locked up tens of thousands including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigations as well as journalists who reported on them.

Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

As part of the massive crackdown on the Gülen movement, more than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged links to Gülen group. Nearly 200 media outlets, over 1,000 educational institutions and close to 2,000 NGOs were shut down without any due process.

According to a statement from Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on February 20, 2021, a total of 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained, while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since 2016. The minister said there were 25,467 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed on alleged links to the movement.