Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok, an Islamic scholar, who was one of the thousands of victims of the battue carried out against religious people in 2000s after the "Postmodern" coup of Feb. 28, was arrested in 2000 and imprisoned for one year.
Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok was detained in 2000 and released the next year. He then arrested again in 2015 unfairly due to his Islamic services. The painful family of Mulla Ekrem Derdiyok described the arrest as a great atrocity against an Islamic scholar.
Muslims, who were on the target of illegal structures like FETO that tried to destroy them due to seeing them as a rival, like PKK that did not recognize the right to life for those were not on its path, and like JITEM, were subjected to various attacks and tortures in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result of the established calipers, thousands of people were placed in dungeons by ignoring all legal rules. The demand of those unlawfully prisoned people victimized by Feb. 28 and FETO judicial, still continues for justice.
The family of victim Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok demands only justice in the interview with ILKHA's corresponded they called on authorities.
The mother and family of Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok described this as persecution while people in prosecutions, such as Ergenekon and Balyoz members were released despite being charged with a heavy sentence, but the religious people are still held in prisons. The mother and family demand this persecution to end immediately.
The 75-years-old painful mother of Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok qualified this as an unjust and cruelty while a scholar like her son, whose only worry was science and teaching Qur'an, demands her son be released as soon as possible.
The painful mother Kadife Derdiyok expressed in tears that her son was prisoned such as other victims of Feb. 28, who were trying to live an Islamic life. "I pray to Allah in the mornings and evenings for the release of my son. I want him home. He has no crime. They sentenced him without any crime. We were shattered after the detention of my son."
"My son wasn't involved in any illegal crimes, he was teaching Qur'an in the mosque"
Saying that her son was a scholar, busy with the Islamic science and raising students in accordance with the Qur'an, painful mother continued, "My son was a mullah [imam]. He was involved in Islamic science, raising students. He wasn't involved in any illegal crimes."
Demanding her son to be released, mother said, "I want they release my son for the sake of me as an elderly mother. My son was a clean, polite and working only for Islam and for the sake of Allah. He had harmed no one. I am an elderly mother. There is nothing I can do but demand only for justice. I can't even go to the prison to visit him due to my advanced age. I want the right of my son to e given back. I ask nothing in this world but the release of my son."
Mrs. Zeynep, the wife of Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok, also demands justice. "My husband was a mullah teaching Qur'an. He was an Islamic scholar teaching Quran to children in the mosque. He was released after one year kept in prison in 2000. But then he was sentenced again due to the file in 2015," said painful wife Mrs. Zeynep.
"I had to leave the school, I couldn't make my dreams come true"
Derdiyok's eldest son, Yasir Derdiyok, 23, said that he had to leave his high school to make a living for his mother and siblings while his father was sent to prison.
"Eventually I had to look after the family," said Yasir added that he couldn’t make his dreams come true. "We want nothing, not amnesty, we ask for a just rehearing. There is no only my father in the prison. There are hundreds of people kept behind the barred doors unjustly," he added.
Süreyya Derdiyok, the youngest child of Mullah Ekrem Derdiyok also stated that she was a little one when her father was sent to prison. "I was very little when my father was sent to the prison. I would sometimes ask my mother where my father is. She was then answering that my father will come home one day."
"I see my father in my dreams"
Süreyya expressed that she sees her father in her dreams and feel upset when she wakes up. "All my friends come to the school with their father, I can't. I want my father to hold my hand and take me the school. But my father is not here and makes me feel upset. We want justice. My father was a scholar, imam, had no crime. I wish the door knock right now and my father came in because I miss him so much. Each time when the door knocks, I feel like it is my father."
ILKHA