Over the course of two weeks, the travel ban on a mother of an eight-year-old boy with stage four cancer was lifted, reinstated and lifted again, providing a glimpse into the fate of tens of thousands of people trapped by the tentacles of Turkey’s penal system.

The fate of Ahmet Burhan Atac, struggling for his life, topped the public agenda in the past few weeks after his social media plea to be with his mother went viral earlier this month: Ahmet has been receiving treatment for his bone cancer in Germany, but his mother, Zekiye, has not been permitted to accompany him due to a travel ban against her. Ahmet asked that Turkish authorities allow her to leave the country.

After Ahmet's plea led to a public outcry on social media, a prosecutor revoked the ban on Feb. 7, but another prosecutor reinstated it a few hours later. The second ban was lifted Feb. 21, after which Zekiye began tackling the legal work of obtaining a passport. 

Flip-flopping from relief to despair has become a grim phenomenon in Turkey. The glimpse of freedom granted by one judicial authority can suddenly be blocked by another.