“I am hurting. All of Saturday’s mothers are hurting. Every day is harder than the last, with no certainty and no gravestone to visit,” said Emine Oczak, 88 and co-founder of a protest movement calling for an explanation for disappearances in state custody, who finds her memory is not as good as it used to be.
For his daughter, Aysel Ocaq, the situation is a little different: “When it comes to my brother Hasan, the memories and the pain are still very fresh,” she said.
The last time Hasan was heard from was on March 21, 1995. Over the phone, he promised to bring fish and cake that evening. However, he never showed up that night, nor any time after. After a lengthy search, the Ocaks found out he had been detained. Despite witness statements, the police denied having him in custody.
The group held its 1,000th meeting in May. Image: Cumartesianneleri
The Ojaks founded a human rights organization with the slogan “You took Hasan alive, we want him back alive,” but it didn’t work. Two months later, they found Hasan’s body in an Istanbul cemetery, severely tortured and buried in an unknown grave.
The following week, on May 27, 1995, the women of the family, Emine, Mashide and Aysel, went to Galatasari Square in central Istanbul and held their first all-night prayer vigil with other families whose relatives had recently disappeared in state custody.
Since then, they’ve been coming every week, mostly women: mothers, aunts, sisters, wives of the missing. They bring photos of their loved ones, leave red carnations, tell stories, and ask for justice. They became known as the “Saturday Mothers” because they always met on a Saturday, but now they call themselves “Saturday People.”
“For the thousandth time, where are our relatives?”
On the last weekend of May, Saturday Mothers/People held their 1,000th rally. One mother read a statement: “Every week we come here with incredible pain and uncontainable hope. Today, for the 1,000th time, we ask: Where are our relatives? Why does the state shield the perpetrators? We will not stop crying out for justice.”
For Aysel Ocaq, Galatasary Square has symbolic meaning: “We gather here to lay flowers, and it is a very important place, especially for families who do not yet have gravestones to visit,” she explains.
In 2018 they were banned from protesting in the iconic square after a court ruling in their favour led to Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruling, but now only 10 people are usually allowed to read statements there on Saturdays.
The 1,000th all-night prayer vigil was an exception.
1,350 since 1980
According to protesters on Saturday, there are more than 1,350 registered cases of people who have disappeared in custody of police or soldiers since the bloody military coup in 1980. “Mostly in the 1980s and 1990s,” Aysel Ocaq explained. “In 1993 there were 103 cases, and a year later there were 532.”
In the 1990s, war broke out between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish forces, killing many civilians.
The Turkish government has taken draconian measures to fight the PKK: in mountainous Kurdish areas, forests have been cut down to prevent PKK fighters from taking refuge, and entire settlements have been forcibly evacuated and burned down.
Some Kurdish tribes were forced to join the armed struggle against the PKK as paramilitary groups. Those who refused to join were harassed, arrested and tortured. The fate of many people who disappeared during that time remains unknown. It was later revealed that paramilitary groups had been organized to carry out these enforced disappearances.
Police stop “Saturday Mothers”
To watch this video, please enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
Saturday Mothers Fight for Truth and Justice
For Milena Buyum, Amnesty International’s Turkey specialist, the Saturday Mothers’ struggle has had one clear impact: “Through their tireless resistance, they have almost halted the enforced disappearances that were so widespread in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s. Their resistance is an inspiration to all civil society organisations.”
But since the 2016 coup attempt, incidents have been occurring again. Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a member of the pro-Kurdish opposition Democratic Party in Turkey’s parliament, has been monitoring the incidents. He said there have been at least 35 incidents since 2016, and that the whereabouts of at least three people are still unknown.
“The rest reappeared six to 18 months later, but most were in prison,” he explained. He noted that the difference from the 1990s is that they are still alive. Many of those arrested are suspected Gülen sympathizers. The Turkish government alleges that US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen and his supporters were behind the 2016 coup attempt.
Enforced Disappearance: A Criminal Act
“Enforced disappearances are criminal acts,” Amnesty’s Buyum stressed, citing relevant UN conventions. In some cases, they can even amount to a crime against humanity, she said.
She explained that the practice is used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidate certain groups. To put an end to this, countries must acknowledge criminal acts and hold perpetrators accountable, she said.
Countries that sign the UN treaty promise to abide by its commitments. Turkey is not a signatory.
This article was translated from German.
