Sevim Fontaine and Jean Claude Picquet from the Association of Human Rights (IHD) organised a solidarity protest together with democratic movements for the Saturday Mothers in the French city of Laurient on Saturday when  a sit-down protest was carried out in Aristide Briand square at 14:00.

The pictures of people who disappeared after being taken into custody by the Turkish police in Turkey and Kurdistan, and leaflets prepared in French were distributed. The protest continued until 19:00. Signatures were also collected in order to be given to the Human Rights Committee of the Turkish Parliament.

Sevim Fontaine from the IHD in Nantes, said that they want the European Union countries to put pressure on Turkey in order to reveal the fate of the people who disappeared in Turkey and Kurdistan with the slogan, “the light of one candle is enough for the darkest place.”

A solidarity protest with the Saturday Mothers has been carried out every second week of the month in Nantes since 2012.

Fontaine said that they will hold solidarity protests with the Saturday Mothers in the next few months in many countries. They will organise protests in Brussels and The Hague in March, in front of the European Court of Human Rights and Arte TV in Strasbourg in April, in Zurich in Switzerland, in German cities in May and in Geneva in June. Fontaine also said that they will join the 500th protest of the Saturday Mothers which will take place in Istanbul on 25 October.

A retired teacher from Brittany, Annie Batori, said that they cannot be silent to the cries of the mothers and she said that she will join future protests.

The Saturday Mothers have been organising protests in Galatasaray square every Saturday in Istanbul since 27 May 1995. The mothers want to learn the fate of their relatives who disappeared while they were in custody and they want the state to reveal what happened to their relatives who were murdered by unknown assailants and they want those responsible to be prosecuted.