The Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri) is a group who gathers 12pm every Saturday for half an hour at Galatasaray (district), Istanbul (Turkey), holding photographs of their "lost" loved ones. Mainly composed of mothers of victims, and renowned as a model of civil disobedience, they combine silent sit-in with communal vigil as their method of protest against the forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey during the military coup-era of 1980s and the OHAL-era of 1990s. On October 25, 2014, they held their 500th sit-in protest.
"I started to cry after I started participating in the Saturday Mothers; before, I was crying in solitude, I could not express my suffering." (a "Saturday mother")
According to the Human Rights Association, between 1992 and 1996, 792 state-forced disappearances and murders have been reported in Kurdish regions in Turkey, with many more missing persons who remain unreported (see also, OHAL).
Reportedly influenced by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, their first sit-in was on May 27, 1995. After facing violent police attacks almost every week, on March 13, 1999, they were forced to halt their protest following a particularly harsh series of attacks by the police and the resulting trauma in the participants. They resumed their protests on January 31, 2009. Currently, the group that started with about 30 people has thousands of participants.
Their main demands include:
In 2013, they were awarded the International Hrant Dink Award.