Saturday mothers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Saturday Mothers ( Cumartesi Anneleri ) is a Turkish organization of relatives and civil rights activists who ask about the whereabouts of people who have "disappeared" in police custody.

Beginning

The Saturday Mothers Movement is closely related to the Ocak family. Hasan Ocak, the son of Emine and Erdoğan Ocak, was last seen in freedom on March 21, 1995. After his arrest, he "disappeared". One woman said that she saw him in captivity and that she was released after 11 days in detention. So on April 4th the Ocak family held a press conference and on April 10th they organized a demonstration in the Kadiköy district of Istanbul, attended by about 400 people. On April 11, 1995, Emine Ocak and others protested the missing family members in a courtroom. They shouted, “We want our sons.” Ocak and one other person were then sentenced to one month in prison. They were released after 12 days.

On Saturday, May 27, 1995, the Ocak family demonstrated in front of Galatasaray High School to punish the murderer of their son Hasan, who was arrested on March 21, 1995 in front of the high school as part of the 1995 Gazi riots . Before that, Emine Ocak had chained herself up in front of the governor's office in April 1995 and demanded a meeting with the governor. 58 days after the disappearance, his grave was discovered in a poor cemetery and on May 19, a few days before the start of the action, Hasan Ocak was buried with great sympathy. At that time in Turkey there were frequent cases of people arrested being tortured and killed. The bodies of the victims were thrown from helicopters over forest areas, buried in wells or mass graves or burned in ovens.

course

Starting on May 27, 1995, people demonstrated every Saturday for about 4 years to investigate these crimes committed against inmates. At first only a few people came to the Saturday demos, then there were more. They usually met at 12:00 noon, sat together in Galatasaray Square for half an hour, holding photos of their missing relatives. In 1999 they stopped the rallies because the authorities often disbanded them.

Since 2009 the Saturday mothers have been going to rallies in front of the Galatasaray High School again. In 2011, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received a delegation of Saturday mothers for talks. Erdoğan promised to clarify. Some of the cases of missing prisoners have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights and Turkey has been convicted several times.

On August 25, 2018, the 700th rally was broken up by the Turkish security forces by force using water cannons and tear gas. 82-year-old Emine Ocak, one of the founders of the movement, was arrested. A total of 47 people were arrested but released after questioning. HDP MPs Ahmet Şık , Hüda Kaya , Garo Paylan and Serpil Kemalbay prevented the arrest of Arat Dink , the son of the murdered Armenian journalist Hrant Dink . The CHP MPs Sezgin Tanrıkulu , Hilmi Yarayıcı , Ali Şeker and Onursal Adıgüzel also intervened on site.

After the 700th rally, the Turkish government banned the Saturday mothers' weekly rallies until further notice. Istanbul authorities as well as Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu justified the ban with connections to the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The Saturday mothers deny that they work for a terrorist organization and want Soylu to come over and listen to you instead of banning their rallies.

Award

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amnesty International: TURQUIA LAS MADRES DE LOS "DESAPARECIDOS" TOMAN MEDIDAS. (PDF) May 1995, accessed October 28, 2018 (Spanish).
  2. ↑ bbc.com of October 20, 2010 (Turkish)
  3. ↑ Cumartesi Anneleri'nin hikayesi (The Story of Saturday Mothers ) , ntv.com, May 17, 2011 (Turkish)
  4. ↑ a b Hrant Dink Ödülü. Retrieved August 28, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c d tagesschau.de: Turkey prohibits mothers protests for those who have disappeared. Retrieved on August 28, 2018 (German).
  6. ↑ "C'était très drôle, une poignée de femmes, des centaines de policiers": un entretien avec Ayşe Günaysu . In: Observatoire de la vie politique turque . ( hypotheses.org [accessed August 22, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Deniz Yücel: Protest in Turkey: On the trail of the "disappeared" . In: THE WORLD . September 25, 2016 ( welt.de [accessed August 22, 2018]).
  8. ^ "Saturday Mothers": Government Must Find Bodies of Disappeared . In: Bianet - Bagimsiz Iletisim Agi . ( bianet.org [accessed August 22, 2018]).
  9. ↑ Turkish police in Istanbul: With tear gas and water cannons against "Saturday mothers" . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 25, 2018]).
  10. ↑ a b Istanbul: Turkish government forbids protest by Saturday mothers . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on August 28, 2018]).