Saturday Mothers have continued their action in Istanbul for their relatives who disappeared in state custody and the punishment of the perpetrators for the 950th 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, was widely cordoned off by police barriers. Galatasaray Square is considered a symbolic place for the struggle for human rights in Turkey.

This week’s action by Saturday Mothers was supported by the Human Rights Association (IHD) Co-Chair Eren Keskin, IHD Istanbul Branch Chairperson Gülseren Yoleri, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV) Representative Ümit Efe, Green Left Party Executive Board Member Musa Piroğlu, Republican People’s Party (CHP) MPs Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Gökçe Gökçen, Türkan Elçi and Suat Özçağdaş and members of the Social Freedom Party (TÖP).

The two groups of deputies and activists were both surrounded by the police on Istiklal Avenue, while the journalists on the ground were pushed back and prevented from doing their work.

During the ensuing crackdown, as many as 20 people were taken into custody, including IHD Co-Chair Eren Keskin and other human rights advocates.

Background

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.