Saturday Mothers have continued their action in Istanbul for their relatives who disappeared in state custody and the punishment of the perpetrators for the 952nd week. Despite a contrary ruling by the Turkish Constitutional Court, the initiative was again denied access to their ancestral rally site in front of the Galatasaray High School on Istiklal Avenue.

The Galatasaray Square in front of the high school of the same name in the central district of Beyoğlu, where the Saturday Mothers' sit-in was to take place, has been widely cordoned off by police barriers since early morning. Galatasaray Square is considered a symbolic place for the struggle for human rights in Turkey. 

The Saturday Mothers marched to the square with carnations in their hands, accompanied by the Green and Left Future Party (Green Left Party) MPs Celal Fırat, Ceylan Akça, Kezban Konukçu, Çiçek Otlu and Özgül Saki and Human Rights Association (IHD) Co-Chair Eren Keskin as well as numerous human rights advocates.

Denied access to the square, the Saturday Mothers and human rights defenders were blockaded by the police, handcuffed and taken into custody, while journalists were violently prevented from documenting the crackdown. The 28 people detained here include IHD Co-Chair Eren Keskin.

Özgül Saki, one of the Green Left Party deputies protesting the detentions, said: “The Saturday Mothers have been taken into custody for 12 weeks because of their search for their disappeared beloved ones. The weekly crackdown they face is aimed at intimidation, but the Saturday Mothers are not alone.”

Another MP of the Green Left Party, Çiçek Otlu, said: “We will not give up on Galatasaray Square. You will be brought to justice.”

The deputies were also attacked and battered by the police while chanting slogans in protest at the brutal crackdown.

In 1995, women in Istanbul took to the streets for the first time to draw attention to relatives who had been arrested and then disappeared. Since a large-scale attack on the Saturday Mothers ordered by the Ministry of Interior in the summer five years ago, Galatasaray Square has been a no-go zone for the Saturday Mothers. But this is contrary to the right to freedom of assembly and demonstration, ruled the Turkish Constitutional Court on 22 February 2023, rejecting the ministry's objection that the Saturday Mothers threatened the "protection of public order". "Everyone has the right to take part in unarmed and peaceful assemblies and demonstrations without prior permission," says Article 34 of the Turkish Constitution, which the security authorities violated by banning the Saturday Mothers' forcefully dispersed action in August 2018 and all subsequent ones. The blockade of the square is therefore invalid, said the court ruling. The Turkish Interior Ministry and the Istanbul police ignore the ruling and continue to violently crack down on Saturday Mothers.