On May 15, 1995, the tortured body of Hasan Ocak, whose relatives had not heard from him since he was detained, was found in the woods in Istanbul, buriedin a common grave. After Hasan Ocak’s end was revealed, a group consisting ofrelatives of the disappeared and human rights advocates decided to stage a sit-inprotest on May 27, 1995 at 12 pm on Saturday in Galatasaray Square of İstiklal Street, demanding that the countless disappeared persons be found and the culpritsidentified and tried. Gathering together to make their demand public, about 30 people sat in silence with photos of “the disappeared” every Saturday, leaving silently after making a press statement. Media and the general public started to callthe people attending this regular sit-in “Saturday Mothers”, since in the first yearsmothers of the disappeared were the majority in the sit-in protests, and becausethe movement resembles the Plaza De Mayo Mothers who gathered together in Argentina with the purpose of finding out what happened to their relatives who were disappeared during the junta regime. Saturday Mothers/People sat in frontof Galatasaray High School every Saturday for 169 weeks despite occasional policeintervention. The intervention of security forces that started on August 15, 1998, which was the 170th week, went on for 7 months. During that period, many peoplewere detained and subjected to violence. On March 13, 1999, Saturday Mothers/People announced that they would take an indefinite break due to these interventions. After a break that lasted for almost a decade, the sit-in protests started againon January 31, 2009. They continued uninterruptedly until August 25, 2018, whenthe Beyoğlu District Governor’s Office banned the protest on the grounds that there is no legal notice, and the police violently prevented the sit-in in the 700th week. Saturday Mothers/People, who call on the authorities to account for the disappearances and have made forced disappearances a widely discussed topic thanksto their unbreakable resilience, continue their protests, at a different location, infront of the Human Rights Association in Taksim since the 700th week. Violent intervention in the 700th sit-in was widely covered by the media. The rise in media coverage and the differences in coverage from newspaper to newspaper ledus to analyze extensively the representation of Saturday Mothers/People in printmedia. We hope that this study will provide insight into how newspapers cover social movements and contribute to the increased visibility of the Saturday Mothers/People’s 24-year struggle for justice.
You can see the report on "Satuday Mothers/People in national press of Turkey: May 1995-September 2018" on pages 129-163 in "Hate Speech and Discriminatory Discourse in Media 2018" report.
