Merve Zayım, a teacher and mother, has been detained in Edirne L-Type Prison while 8.5 months pregnant and was hospitalized on 18th August to give birth under custody.

She was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months on the basis of employment at a school which was shut down during the state of emergency, the use of the ByLock messaging app, and witness statements—grounds which the European Court of Human Rights, in its Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye judgment, has already ruled do not constitute lawful evidence for terrorism-related convictions.

Despite her case being pending before the Court of Cassation for more than 40 months, she was re-arrested in July 2025 for allegedly violating judicial control, with four release requests rejected, even though Turkish law explicitly requires postponement of sentences for pregnant women. Her husband, Furkan Zayım, spent nearly six years in prison unlawfully before his release in January 2024, leaving their 8-year-old son once again at risk of growing up without a parent.