A highly symbolic gathering on Saturday in Turkey: for the 1,000th time, relatives of the “disappeared” gathered on Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul. A banned gathering, but which has taken place every week since 1995
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For almost 30 years, the image has not changed: every Saturday, mothers, daughters, brothers or sons of people who disappeared after being placed in police custody in the 1980s and 1990s, gather with the photo of their loved one and a red carnation in their hand.
Their demands neither, within the group known as “Saturday Mothers”, have not changed: to know what happened, and to judge those responsible if they are still alive. Their demonstration is the oldest in Türkiye and one of the oldest in the world. “This situation is a shame for Turkeydenounces Faruk Eren, whose brother Hayrettin has not given any sign of life since being taken into police custody in 1980. We look for the graves of our loved ones and instead, for 1 000 weeks, the State continues to tell us that no one has disappeared in police custody.”
Since 2018, gatherings have been banned and regularly repressed. But Faruk Eren insists: the stakes of their double quest, justice and truth, are far from only concerning the families of the disappeared.
“If the state does not confront this past, does not recognize the truth, Turkey will never know democracy.”
For three years, however, these families seeking justice have themselves been judged and risk prison for “violation of the law on demonstrations”.
