Kurdish mothers gather for lost loved ones for 600th time
Hundreds of people gathered for the 600th time on Saturday in Istanbul demanding to learn the fate of their loved ones lost in the tumultuous 1980s and ‘90s.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – Hundreds of people gathered for the 600th time on Saturday in Istanbul demanding to learn the fate of their loved ones lost in the tumultuous 1980s and ‘90s.
The gathering, mostly Kurdish women, known as Saturday Mothers, took place under strict security measures as police cordoned off the Galatasaray Square at Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Avenue.
According to a Kurdistan24 reporter on scene, the authorities only allowed people in through checkpoints.
The victims’ mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters have been gathering every Saturday in Istanbul since 1995, except the years 1999-2009 because of police violence.
People with red carnations in their hands sat around a big banner at the Galatasaray Square with the sentence “Saturday Mothers are at the same place for 600 weeks.”
Holding pictures of their lost loved ones at the weekly sit-in, the Kurdish protestors, and their Turkish friends listened to a Spanish audio message of solidarity sent by the Argentinian Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an association of mothers whose children disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s.
The mothers’ marches in Buenos Aires inspired the Kurdish Saturday Mothers sit-ins.
Serpil Taskaya whose contractor father Huseyin Taskaya disappeared after being arrested by the Turkish Army in the Kurdish province of Urfa in 1993, demanded the trial of those responsible for the disappearances.
“There is no political will to uncover the fate of the disappeared and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Taskaya said, criticizing the government and justice system in Turkey.
MPs Huda Kaya and Pervin Buldan of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and Sezgin Tanrikulu, a human rights lawyer and the deputy leader of Turkey’s main opposition party People’s Republican Party (CHP), were present at the sit-in.
The lost Kurdish victims were civilians from various backgrounds ranging from journalists, politicians, businessmen, teachers, and lawyers, according to the Human Rights Association in Turkey.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
(Kurdistan24 Istanbul bureau contributed to this report)