Aussie woman arrested over terror offences in Turkey

An Australian woman accused of being a member of an Australian terrorist cell has been locked up in a Turkish prison.

Lenna Aslan, who goes by the name Çiğdem Aslan, has been arrested in Türkiye over terror offences. Picture: Twitter

An Australian woman has been locked up in a Turkish prison accused of being a member of an Australian terrorist cell.

Lenna Aslan, who goes by the name Çiğdem Aslan, has been arrested over alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, otherwise known as the PKK.

The PKK has been described as a terrorist organisation by many countries including Australia, the US and the UK. Since the 1970s, PKK has been fighting for an independent Kurdish state.

Ms Aslan was arrested on Saturday in a joint operation by Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organisation and Istanbul’s Police’s Counterterrorism Unit as she prepared to board a flight from Istanbul to Australia.

Image of Çigdem Aslan from her LinkedIn profile. Picture: LinkedIn

She is alleged to have been a member of an Australian terrorist cell linked to the PKK.

Ms Aslan is expected to be charged imminently in relation to terror offences.

It’s understood Ms Aslan had been under surveillance prior to her arrest.

An Australian woman has been arrested at an airport in Istanbul, Türkiye. Picture: iStock

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told this masthead it was “providing consular assistance to an Australian woman detained in Türkiye. Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment.”

Ms Aslan’s LinkedIn profile says she is open to work and describes herself as a “human rights activist, migrant, bilingual community health educator, passionate about community works.”

She has been working as a bilingual community health educator for the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health in Melbourne for the past two and a half years.

Her profile on that site says she is a single mother of two daughters who came to Australia 25 years ago as a Kurdish Migrant from Turkey.

Ms Aslan has previously spoken on behalf of the Kurdistan Women’s League of Victoria.