Turkey blocks decades-old mothers' vigil as freedoms suffer


  • World
  • Tuesday, 28 Aug 2018

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers Huda Kaya and Ahmet Sik scuffle with the police as they prevent Saturday Mothers' 700th gathering, that meets every week, demanding to know the fate of their missing relatives, claimed to be last seen in the hands of security forces, in central Istanbul, Turkey August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Every Saturday for 23 years, dozens of people have held a vigil in a central Istanbul square, sitting in silence and holding pictures of relatives who went missing in police detention.

The group was about to stage their 700th demonstration last Saturday when Turkish police told them their protest was banned, before firing tear gas and plastic pellets to disperse the crowd and detaining dozens - including a 82 year-old woman who was among the first to protest in 1995 in search of her son.

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