Saturday Mothers: Where is the body of Cüneyt Aydınlar?

At today's rally of the Saturday Mothers in Istanbul, the fate of Cüneyt Aydınlar has been asked. The 23-year-old student disappeared in February 1994 after his arrest by state forces.

Saturday Mothers took to the streets in Istanbul for the 779th time to demonstrate against the state practice of murdering people in custody and making the bodies disappear. For more than a year and a half, their action has been banned on the ancestral Galatasaray Square in Istanbul's pedestrian zone Istiklal Caddesi. Instead, the initiative meets every Saturday in front of the Human Rights Association (IHD) branch in the small side street Çukur Çeşme to ask about the whereabouts of the missing people.

The theme of today's rally was the fate of Cüneyt Aydınlar. The statement was read by Maside Ocak, whose brother Hasan Ocak was tortured in police custody in 1995 and subsequently murdered. 

Cüneyt Aydınlar studied economics in the third semester at the University of Istanbul and was arrested on 22 February 1994 together with thirteen other persons. Only five days later did the police confirm the arrests. On February 28, 1994, the arrested persons were transferred to a State Security Court (DGM, now abolished) - Cüneyt Aydınlar was not among them. On 17 March 1994, the group held its first consultation with their legal counsel. During this consultation, it came out that Aydınlar had been in custody until 2 March 1994 and had been severely tortured, so massive that he could no longer walk. On the other hand, the police claimed that the student had fled during a site examination on 28 February 1994. Nothing is still known about his whereabouts and his body has never been found.