Saturday afternoon is a challenging time for Hanım Tosun.

It’s a reminder of the day in 1995 when her husband, Fehmi, was stuffed into a police car by three plainclothes policemen outside of their home in Istanbul, while their five children, ranging from 3 to 14 years old, watched.

Tosun said her son tried to stop the officers, but one of them hit the boy on his arm with a gun and threatened the family.

She hasn’t seen her husband since.

“We saw the car, we wrote down the plate number, we went immediately to the police, we went to all of the authorities, and we never heard from them,” Tosun said.

He had been suspected of aiding a Kurdish political group and had already spent three years in prison on that charge, according to a report from Amnesty International.

Tosun badgered the police for information about her husband. But she couldn’t locate him. After she exhausted all her efforts she joined the Human Rights Association in Istanbul.

Decades later, she is still seeking answers.

On most Saturday afternoons, Tosun stands in front of a police barricade in Istanbul’s Galatasaray Square. She and nine others — a limit set by the Turkish government — hold signs of loved ones taken during military rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

The 10 protesters stand with pink carnations in front of signs with names, pictures, dates and a phrase to show the fate of abductees — “disappeared in custody.”

These are the “Saturday Mothers,” and they’ve made Galatasaray Square a place of remembrance since 1995.

What started as a group of mothers protesting the disappearance of their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands, has sprouted into a multigenerational cause, on track to be one of the longest running protests in the world.

The protesters say the government has never properly investigated the fate of those who were abducted or detained by police or who died in extrajudicial killings.

Starting in the square

Hasan Ocak’s name was one of the first names to ring out in Galatasaray Square in 1995. Ocak ran a coffee shop in Istanbul. On March 21, 1995, he went to the market to buy fish and never returned.

Earlier that month, unknown assailants had targeted several coffee shops in drive-by shootings in the Gazi neighborhood. They killed a religious leader of the Alevi faith, a minority sect of Islam. The assault sparked protests, and the police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 17 and injuring 300.

According to his brother, Ali Ocak, Hasan had taken part in the protests. But days later, he disappeared. He wasn’t the only one.

Ali said he heard stories of people looking for their loved ones. They’d ask the authorities for information, but to no avail. So he and his family decided to question the police publicly.

“We organized events saying, ‘You took our brother when he was alive and we want him back alive,’” Ali said.

His family searched for Hasan for weeks, making a grisly discovery in May of 1995.

Hasan’s older brother, Hüseyin, recognized him in a photo taken by the Istanbul Forensic Medicine Institute. Ali said it was hard to tell if it was Hasan in the photo, because he was so battered. There were “signs of torture” and “ink all over his fingertips,” evidence the authorities had fingerprinted him.

The institute had found his body on March 26, 1995, and held it for two weeks, according to an Amnesty International report. Hasan was then buried in an unidentified grave in the Fatih Cemetery, the report said.

The family recovered his body and buried him in their family graveyard in Gazi on May 19, 1995. Less than a week later, the first Saturday Mothers protest was held in Galatasaray Square.

The Saturday Mothers draw inspiration from another group of grieving families halfway around the world. Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, an Argentina-based organization, formed in the 1970s to protest the enforced disappearances of loved ones while in state custody.

Both organizations are models of peaceful resistance. Yet, because they draw attention to state-sanctioned violence and human rights abuses, they can be a thorn in the side of authoritarian governments. From time to time, Turkish authorities have lashed out at the Saturday Mothers.

One flashpoint occurred as the Saturday Mothers held their 700th vigil, on Aug. 25, 2018. Police descended on the protesters with tear gas and water cannons.

Ali Ocak was among the 46 people detained by Turkish authorities, although they were released hours later.

One photo from the event captured the police dragging away Ocak’s mother Emine Ocak.

That image of police officers, with body armor and gas masks strapped to their chests, reverberated around international screens and is one of the iconic photos used in coverage from 2018.

The man who took that photo has his own connection to the Saturday Mothers.

Building an archive

Journalist Hayri Tunç was 15 years old when he joined the organization after his uncle was tortured to death.

For the past 15 years, he’s covered the Saturday Mothers for independent news media. Tunç said he started reporting on the event because other news outlets had begun to treat it as routine, discounting the powerful stories told by the protesters.

“It’s not a simple matter, and it’s a long-winded struggle, so it needs to be reported in a different way,” Tunç said.

Part of Tunç’s role with the Saturday Mothers is as an archivist. He collects and preserves the protesters’ stories. He also keeps a record of each week’s vigil, tracking any police brutality or misconduct. He said when there’s protests happening every week, people tend to forget what happened in previous weeks.

The work is also about preserving the memories of family members who eventually grow old and die, Tunç said. When a mother dies, he said, it’s “devastating.”

But he also said he’s encouraged to see younger generations getting involved with the organization.

Justice is the main pursuit of the Saturday Mothers, according to Tunç. It’s not about revenge or lashing out against the state, but instead demanding accountability and saying “goodbye” to their loved ones.

The Vigil

Galatasaray Square is the midpoint of İstiklal Street, the city’s lively pedestrian thoroughfare. On a typical Saturday, thousands of people throng İstiklal, strolling past cafes, bookstores, pubs, art galleries, theaters, and shops. Amid the Art Nouveau facades, historic buildings, and the tram that quietly shuttles up and down the boulevard, it could be easy to miss the Saturday Mothers.

The police presence is one clue that something extraordinary is happening. A handful of armed uniformed officers stand off to one side, watching the vigil. Other uniformed and plainclothes officers mingle with the spectators.

The square itself is blocked off by a police fence about 6-feet tall.

The vigil is held just in front of the fencing on İstiklal street. Each week features the story of someone who disappeared in custody. A spokesperson starts the vigil by telling that person’s story as members of the media set up cameras and microphones.

As the vigil ends, the protesters toss their carnations over the police fence and into the barricaded square as if placing flowers on a grave.

Tosun doesn’t want the protests to go on forever. Rather, she wants the state to open its archives and give them the reports and information they’ve sought for nearly 30 years. They want to know the fate of their loved ones and why they were taken in the first place.

Although nobody is buried at Galatasaray, for Ahmet Cihan, the square is both a graveyard and a “healing place.” But when Cihan thinks about his brother, Süleyman, all he can think of is “trauma.”

When the Saturday Mothers return to the square every week, they’re also thinking about the next week and the one after that, he said.

“So, they’re constantly living with trauma, it’s a constant torture,” Cihan said.

Cihan said he’s been arrested and is familiar with torture.

“It’s not just my brother, but the voices of hundreds of other people under custody and their screams, their cries, are still in my ears,” Cihan said.

Sebla Arcan, a spokesperson for the organization, said the Saturday Mothers set an “example of good citizenship” with their vigils. She said she’s heard of other countries reaching out to tell the Saturday Mothers they’ve been inspired by them.

Arcan said there’s a recognizable pattern between the families’ stories.

“When you tell one story, you’re really telling all the stories,” Arcan said.

She said those arrested were doctors, lawyers, professionals and university students. Their pictures serve as a reminder of their existence, when, she said, the state denies it.

The protest expanded over the years to include two to three generations of family members assisting with the organization and telling their stories.

“There’s an intergenerational transfer of responsibility,” Arcan said.

Tosun saw that with her own kids, and she has formed relationships with other Saturday Mothers and their children. In fact, she said she is closer to her Saturday Mothers friends than to some of her own family members.

Grief, she said, is a powerful bond.

“Each time we remember a person, all of our hearts bleed,” Tosun said. “We have a wound and it doesn’t matter if it’s our family member or somebody else’s. Our wounds begin to bleed when we’re together and remembering somebody.”

But what gives Tosun added strength is the support around her — the support of mothers, brothers, sisters and loved ones searching for answers — and justice — in Galatasaray square.