Since 1995, the Saturday Mothers in Istanbul, like the Argentinian "Madres de la Plaza de Mayo", have protested week after week in Istanbul with sit-ins and pictures of their relatives against their "disappearance" in state custody and demand information about their whereabouts. Their weekly protests have been accompanied by massive police violence from the beginning. On 25 August 2018, the Saturday Mothers were banned from entering Galatasaray Square by an order that is illegal under both European human rights law and the Turkish constitution. Since then, the Saturday Mothers have repeatedly tried to gather at their traditional rally site. The Turkish state responded with massive police violence and repression.

The Turkish state has been occupying Galatasaray Square for four years, according to a statement by Saturday Mothers. With barriers of concrete, water cannons, armoured vehicles and heavily armed forces, the police turned a square in a popular neighbourhood in central Istanbul into a police station. "It is a square in the busiest street of Istanbul that should be accessible to all citizens. For four years, we have been trying to overturn the ban that restricts our legal right to freedom of assembly, so far, unfortunately, without success. The constitution and the law do not protect us. For years, the law has simply been ignored by politics, the administration and the judiciary.”

Concerts and events are also affected by the ban, according to Saturday Mothers. These bans, which are issued by the governors on the orders of the government, are aimed at silencing the population and forcing them to obey their ideology.

Even if everyone remains silent - we raise our voices!

"It is time for a common struggle against the bans," the statement continued. But so far, no broad resistance supported by the whole of society has been formed," said the Saturday Mothers, criticizing the silence of the Istanbul Bar Association, which, according to Turkish law, has the possibility to sue against the bans. The Saturday Mothers also asked Ekrem Imamoğlu (CHP), who has been mayor of Istanbul since 2019 and owes his election to the Kurdish population, about the reasons for his silence and called on him to intervene.

“The same goes for the artists and musicians who have also enlivened the square in the heart of Istanbul for decades with their performances. After all, an open Galatasaray Square, freely accessible to all, is important for everyone.”

The Saturday Mothers concluded by reaffirming that they would not give up: "Even if everyone remains silent, we will raise our voices! Reporting on the oppression we have experienced is a matter of dignity for us."