A judiciary operating under government influence continues to enforce a form of “enemy law” against the opposition and dissenting voices in Turkey, leaving shattered lives in its wake. Within this system, being pulled into a single investigation is enough to be profiled, marked and targeted again; people are stripped of their freedom for months or even years on the basis of empty case files and unlawful proceedings.
Real estate agent Mecit Şahinkaya has become one of the latest victims of this long-running punitive approach. He was sentenced to eight years in prison on the basis of disputed allegations made by anonymous witnesses in the indictment prepared against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and ultimately spent fourteen years behind bars. After his release, he rebuilt his life from the ground up, married and launched his own business. But just as his work stabilised, and the couple prepared for the birth of their daughter, he was detained once again, this time on the claim that he was “preparing for a sensational act.”
His wife, journalist Sinem Gündüz Şahinkaya, spoke to ANF and underlined that Mecit Şahinkaya had been able to experience only a year and a half of freedom before being arrested again. She is the daughter of Mehmet Gündüz, who was killed in the Gazi Massacre. She said: “When my father was shot and killed in the 12 March Gazi Massacre, I was six years old. I know the pain of growing up without a father. I do not want my daughter to experience the same pain.”
They started pounding on the door at dawn on 30 September
Sinem Gündüz Şahinkaya, who ran a real estate office in the Gazi neighbourhood with her husband Mecit Şahinkaya, saw her life collapse again when police raided their home at dawn on 30 September 2025. Eight months pregnant at the time, she described the raid as follows: “We woke up to them pounding on the door at five in the morning. Around ten to fifteen officers, masked and carrying long-barrelled weapons, broke the steel door and burst inside shouting, ‘Get on the ground, get on the ground.’ Mecit protested them, smashing the door and said ‘Why are you entering like this? If you knocked normally, we would open.’ A female officer held me in one corner while they searched the house and took Mecit away. I will never forget the last look he gave me before he left the house. There was deep shock in his eyes.”
Risk of miscarriage after the raid
Sinem Gündüz Şahinkaya said that the stress she experienced after the raid put her at risk of miscarriage. Her husband, who had been taken to the Vatan Istanbul Police Directorate and held in custody for three days, was then sent to the Çağlayan Courthouse, where he was arrested on the allegation of “membership in an organisation” without being questioned. Sinem noted that the prosecutor did not even allow her husband to give a statement and said: “My husband, who had been so excited for our daughter’s birth, was suddenly taken away to Marmara Prison in Silivri. And I was left there, heavily pregnant, with nowhere to turn.”
Even the property listing my husband posted was treated as “organisational activity”
Sinem Gündüz Şahinkaya noted that the simultaneous operation carried out against her husband and fourteen others was immediately turned into false headlines in pro-government media, claiming they were “preparing for a sensational act.” She said the accusations in the case file were nothing short of absurd. Sinem explained that she and her husband ran a small real estate office called Devran Gayrimenkul in the Gazi neighborhood and continued: “I worked as a reporter for IMC TV and Artı TV, but I left my job to help my husband. In the file prepared against him, even the property listing he put up for a house sale was treated as evidence of a crime. A client asks him to put up a sign to sell their house. He hangs the sign and this is presented as proof of ‘membership in an organisation.’ In a phone call with a customer, him saying ‘we can hang the poster here,’ referring to the sales sign, was considered sufficient evidence.”
Money customers sent via IBAN was labelled “financing an organisation”
Sinem also said: “They didn’t stop there. In Gazi, there is the Gazi Sports Club where children learn football, and the fact that my husband occasionally went there to watch matches was also presented as evidence. Before we opened our real estate office, we ran a café in Gazi. Money that customers transferred to my husband through IBAN, the 50 lira coffee we drank together, the treatment money he sent to his disabled mother, even the stationery money he sent to his sister for her children, all of it was labelled as ‘financing an organisation.’ What this case file shows is that simply living in Gazi, running a café there or owning a business is seen as enough to criminalise you.”
He spent 15 years in prison because of false statements by secret witnesses
Sinem Gündüz Şahinkaya said that her husband Mecit Şahinkaya had already been unlawfully imprisoned for years, noting that in 2009 he received an eight-year sentence based on the false testimony of a secret witness and, because he objected to that sentence, ended up spending a total of fifteen years in prison. Sinem reminded that secret witnesses are now widely discussed because of the operations against the Republican People’s Party (CHP) but that this form of persecution has been going on for years, and continued: “My husband received an eight-year sentence solely because two secret witnesses claimed he had ‘taken part in NATO protests.’ Yet in 2004, Mecit was only a 14- or 15-year-old child, and he had never attended any protest. Later, while in prison, another seven years were added to his sentence because he protested this unlawful ruling by banging on his cell door and chanting slogans. He spent seven years in a solitary confinement cell in Van Prison. After he was released, he decided to build a new life. But they did not allow that either. He was able to experience only one and a half years of freedom. Six months of that time he spent lying at home because he broke his leg in a motorcycle accident, and the rest he spent trying to get our business on its feet. My husband is hardworking, devoted always someone who focused entirely on his job. Just when he finally managed to put his life in order, they took him again. They didn’t even let him witness the birth of our daughter. She was born ten days ago, on 3 November, but her father was not there.”
Let this oppression end now
Şahinkaya said that her father, Mehmet Gündüz, was killed in the Gazi Massacre, explained that she was only six years old when he was shot dead on the night of 12 March 1995 by a bullet fired from a police armoured vehicle in front of the Gazi Cemevi, (an Alevi place of worship). She said she lived with the pain of growing up without a father for years and emphasised that she does not want her daughter to experience the same suffering. Sinem said: “I lived through this pain, this cruelty, my daughter must not. I grew up without a father, and when I look at my daughter, I relive that pain over and over again. Every time I look at my child, I am reminded of myself. When my father was killed, the three of us, my siblings and I, were left fatherless. My little sister was only twelve months old, still in the cradle, and my brother had only just learned to walk. No one has the right to do this. By taking my father, they stole my childhood; by condemning my husband to fifteen years in prison unlawfully, they stole his youth; and now, by arresting him again without any legal basis, they want my daughter to grow up without her father. This has gone beyond enemy law, it has turned into revenge, and it is impossible to accept. When I visited my husband during closed visitation, he felt the pain of not being with our daughter, of being targeted once again by the same injustice and unlawfulness. This is a severe violation of rights. I do not want to introduce my child to her father inside a prison. I want this lawlessness to end immediately. Let this oppression end now. Let my husband be released and return to his home.”