The Saturday Mothers is a group who gathers every Saturday at noon for half an hour at Galatasaray, Istanbul, initially to ask for clarification about their missing relatives Mainly composed of mothers of victims, and renowned as a model of civil disobedience, they combine silent sit-in with communal vigil as their method of protest against the forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey during the military coup-era of 1980s and the OHAL-era of 1990s. On October 25, 2014, they held their 500th sit-in protest.
History
According to the Human Rights Association, between 1992 and 1996, 792 state-forced disappearances and murders have been reported in the east of Turkey, with many more missing persons who remain unreported. Reportedly influenced by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, their first sit-in was on May 27, 1995. After facing violent police attacks almost every week, on March 13, 1999, they were forced to halt their protest following a particularly harsh series of attacks by the police and the resulting trauma in the participants. They resumed their protests on January 31, 2009. Currently, the group that started with about 30 people has thousands of participants. On August 25th, 2018, Turkish authorities announced that the governorship has banned the gathering event. Following the announcement, in their 700th peaceful protest, Saturday Mothers were faced with police violence and several of the participants were detained. The Turkish authorities claim that the Saturday Mothers' protest was hijacked by terrorist groups, pointing out that details of their 700th vigil had been posted on social media sympathetic to the terrorist groupPKK. Their main demands include:
In February 2011, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited the Saturday Mothers to his office in Istanbul to listen to the requests of the mothers. Erdoğan said that as government he will do everything he can to alleviate the suffering of the family members, but also mentioned that it will not be easy to achieve results in cases that are older than 30 years. He noted, however, that this could not be an excuse and that the necessary efforts would be made to achieve positive results.
