Amnesty International will join Saturday Mothers at a panel discussion on 27 May as the group mark three decades of what is one of the world’s longest peaceful protests.  

“Tomorrow marks thirty years of the Saturday Mothers’ tireless struggle for truth, justice and accountability. They have always gathered peacefully – at times facing tear gas, water cannons and other police violence as well as arbitrary detention and baseless prosecutions. We stand in solidarity with them,” said Milena Buyum, Amnesty International’s Senior Türkiye Campaigner.

“The Saturday Mothers have become a potent global symbol of the importance of peaceful protest: a right that they and their supporters continue to defend even in the face of the authorities’ crackdown.” 

The Saturday Mothers/People (Cumartesi Anneleri/İnsanları) began their peaceful sit-ins in Galatasaray Square on 27 May 1995, calling on the authorities to investigate the fate and whereabouts of hundreds of people who were forcibly disappeared in detention and killed after Türkiye’s military coup in the 1980s and the state of emergency of the 1990s.

Many of the alleged perpetrators in the states’ security apparatus and paramilitary groups have escaped justice after the trials were abandoned due to the expiry of a 30 years statute of limitations. In the prosecutions that have been brought to court, suspected perpetrators have been acquitted.

Since August 2018, Galatasaray Square has been surrounded by metal barriers blocking access and guarded by armed police around the clock.  Two Constitutional Court rulings in 2022 and 2023, which found that the Saturday Mothers’/Peoples’ right to freedom of peaceful assembly had been violated and ordered the violation not to be repeated, have remained unimplemented. Attempts by the Saturday Mothers/People to gather there between April and November 2023, following the binding rulings, were met with a heavy-handed security response and the detention of members of the group. Since November 2023, while police intervention and detentions have ended, the authorities have arbitrarily placed a restriction on the numbers allowed to join the weekly vigil that takes place in front of the metal police barriers to ten people.

“Despite the crackdown, ill-treatment and prosecutions, the Saturday Mothers vigil is emblematic of the tenacity and resilience of human rights defenders in Türkiye,” said Milena Buyum. 

“We join with voices around the world to call for the unlawful restrictions on their vigils in Galatasaray Square to be immediately lifted.” 

Background  

Amnesty International issued a new urgent action, calling on the authorities to open Galatasaray Square for protesters