An İstanbul court has ruled for the acquittal of 20 people from the Saturday Mothers, a group of activists and relatives seeking to learn the fate of loved ones who disappeared while in police custody in Turkey in the 1990s, who were indicted for participating in a protest in June 2023, the Expression Interrupted platform announced.
The defendants, including relatives of the disappeared and human rights defenders, were charged with violating the Law on Meetings and Marches after being detained during their 950th weekly vigil in June 2023 in İstanbul’s Galatasaray Square.
They were facing a prison sentence from one-and-a-half to three years.
The court made its decision at the fourth hearing of the trial in İstanbul on Friday, followed by rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Media and Law Studies Association.
Oya Meriç Eyüpoğlu, a lawyer and one of the defendants, said in her defense statement that she has been participating in the vigils since 1995 and has been detained multiple times. She complained about arbitrary police action against the protestors, saying that the protestors are detained by the police even before the protestors are informed about a ban.
Eyüpoğlu also said the detention and the subsequent indictment of the protestors run contrary to the rulings of the Constitutional Court, which ruled in November 2022 and March 2023 that the protesters’ right to peaceful assembly had been violated and that these violations should not be repeated.
The Saturday Mothers, who first gathered on May 27, 1995, in Galatasaray Square and have continued to meet there on Saturdays for a silent vigil since then, has staged the longest-running protest Turkey has ever witnessed.
The vigils, which saw the participation of larger numbers of people on landmark dates such as the 500th and 600th weeks, had been held peacefully without any restrictions by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government until the 700th week in 2018, when dozens of protestors were detained after police broke up the protest and authorities banned it.
Members of the group went on trial in 2021 on charges of refusing to disperse despite police warnings, and for the past five years police have been dispersing and detaining members of the group every Saturday when they attempt to stage their protest.
The “Saturday Mothers” vigil resumed in November 2023 without police intervention after Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the government had “good intentions” and that a peaceful solution would be found, responding to questions by opposition lawmakers during a parliamentary session.