Warrington take action for Saturday Mothers

Have you visited Turkey? Have you heard of the Saturday Mothers? Since May 1995 relatives of people who “disappeared” in police custody have been holding weekly vigils at midday in Galatasaray Square, central Istanbul, demanding information from the authorities about their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, brothers.  They are known as the Saturday Mothers/People.  A press announcement is read out detailing the case of one of the “disappeared” but otherwise it is a silent vigil with everyone holding pictures of their loved ones.

However, for nearly six years the Saturday Mothers have been denied their right to peaceful protest in Galatasaray Square. Vigils have taken place elsewhere but they have been interrupted and peaceful protesters have faced harassment at the events.

The 1000th vigil took place on 25 May and Amnesty staged a Global Day of Action to publicise the situation.  One of the main targets was to collect 1,000 messages of solidarity to be delivered to the Saturday Mothers and to be shared on social media on the day of the vigil.

The Warrington Group generated a message of solidarity by taking a photo of the group outside the Golden Gates, Sankey Street, Warrington – as this is a recognisable public location – holding the simple message ‘Solidarity with Saturday Mothers’. Red carnations were woven into the gates because this is the flower many relatives take to their vigils. Out photo was one of many used by Amnesty International UK to publicise the Saturday Mothers' campaign.