Toddler joins pro-Kurdish lawmaker mother in Turkish prison

Celik, who represents her native Mus province in the Turkish Parliment, had earlier asked prison officials for permission to have daughter Asmin Mira by her side.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkey's Justice Ministry allowed for one of the imprisoned pro-Kurdish lawmakers, Burcu Celik, to be reunited with her three-year-old daughter on Wednesday in the Sincan prison in the capital of Ankara, where she is currently held by authorities.

Celik, a lawyer by profession, representing her native Mus province in the Turkish Parliament, had earlier asked prison officials for permission to have daughter Asmin Mira by her side.

Police arrested Celik last month in Mus on the grounds of being affiliated with an armed "terrorist" organization as a part of an ongoing government clampdown on Kurdish politicians countrywide.

Her father, Kadri Celik, was a high-ranking Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighter killed in a mine explosion in 2012, a year before the now-collapsed peace talks between the Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government.

Kurdistan24's Ankara Bureau said that according to HDP accounts, there are 560 babies and toddlers whose mothers are held in prisons across Turkey.

"This number will in a few days rise to 561," said HDP's newly-elected co-leader Serpil Kemalbay.

She went on to criticize the ongoing state of emergency that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week said would continue until the nation finds "tranquility."

"Maybe this is the first time in the world that a lawmaker will be staying in jail with her child," deputy head of the HDP block in Parliament Filiz Kerestecioglu said.

Speaking during a parliamentary session, Kerestecioglu called the detention of her fellow MP "shameful."

Along with Celik, there are 11 HDP lawmakers jailed either in pre-trial custody or following a court conviction.

 

Editing by G.H. Renaud