Turkish police have once again prevented the weekly vigil by Saturday Mothers in Istanbul and detained seventeen members of the initiative, including the co-chair of the Human Rights Association (IHD), Eren Keskin, and the spokesperson of the IHD Prison Commission, Nuray Çevirmen, and Hanım Tosun, wife of Fehmi Tosun, a Kurd who "disappeared" in Istanbul in 1995. Tosun was taken away despite evidence of a recent heart operation and a broken arm. Mikail Kırbayır, Irfan Bilgin, Maside Ocak, Sebla Arcan, Besna Tosun, Ali Tosun, Ali Ocak, Hüseyin Ocak, Yasemin Bektaş, Aylin Tekiner, Ikbal Eren, Setenay Yarıcı, Hanife Yıldız and Leman Yurtsever were also taken into custody during the crackdown.

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. Riot police deployed with a large contingent prevented the group from approaching the square. Galatasaray Square is considered a symbolic place for the struggle for human rights in Turkey.

A Twitter message by the Saturday Mothers said: "We have come together on the occasion of Eid to lay red carnations at this symbolic place and remember our loved ones who disappeared in custody. But our peaceful vigils, which we initiate for the clarification of the fate of the missing and for the punishment of the perpetrators, are not allowed despite a ruling by the Constitutional Court. Those responsible are thus violating the law and deliberately ignoring the judiciary.”

Visits to the cemetery on Eid are part of the Muslim tradition of breaking the fast. But many of the thousands of people who disappeared in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s do not have a grave where relatives can mourn or say prayers.  It is estimated that more than 17,000 "disappeared" people were abducted, tortured and murdered by death squads on behalf of the state during this leaden period. Their bodies were usually buried in mass graves, caves or in disused industrial plants, thrown onto rubbish dumps, sunk into well shafts and acid pits or, as in Argentina, eliminated by being dropped from military helicopters. Most of the victims were Kurds. Often, they had been picked up at home by the police or the army, or they had been ordered to the local police station for a "statement", or they had been detained at a military road check.

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, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled 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 the Saturday Mothers for the third week in a row.