SATURDAY MOTHERS In a political regime dominated by violence and gross human rights violations, it was difficult to see how pro-democracy civil disobedience could have any serious political impact or attract widespread support. Nevertheless, on May 27, 1995, families of the disappeared and human rights advocates came together in front of the Galatasaray High School on Istiklal Street, a central boulevard in Istanbul, and turned the spot into a dynamic memorial site. They began a simple sit-in, like their Argentinian counterparts The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, as a simultaneous protest and commemoration that would be repeated every Saturday. Holding photographs of the disappeared, the protestors made two main demands. Their primary demand was concrete and reliable information on what had happened to their children or comrades. In other words, they were asking the Turkish state to release their bodies, while also trying to keep collective memory alive. Secondly, they demanded trials for unjust state practices, determination of the perpetrators of the disappearances and trials of those specifically responsible for their children’s disappearances, and an end to impunity for state officials. In this regard, the Saturday Mothers represented one of the first dynamic memoralizations in Turkish political history, as victims of rights violations who worked regularly and patiently to force the disappeared thousands onto the agenda of Turkish society. Moreover, the mothers of the disappeared began to engage in commemoration of their children not only in Istanbul, but also in Diyarbakir and Sirnak, where the number of people disappeared has been much higher than in other provinces.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:26:32 +0000
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