Human Rights lawyer Gülseren Yoleri has been detained briefly by the Turkish police.  The reason for her detention appears to be her talk she gave at the meeting of the Mothers of the Disappeared, known as “Saturday Mothers” in Turkey.

Gülseren Yoleri was confronted by the police on her way home at around 3.00 PM last Thursday.  The police told her they wanted to take her statement at the police station and took her.

Recently, Yoleri had spoken at the Saturday Mothers event which is held by the mothers of the disappeared every Saturday at a central location in Istanbul. They hold pictures of their loved ones who were either taken by the state officials then never heard of, or simply vanished in suspicious circumstances. That was the 759^th gathering of the mothers and relatives of the victims who “disappeared” in the hands of the government officials. During the tumultuous times in the 1990’s, tens of thousands of mostly Kurdish dissidents vanished during the escalated attacks of the Turkish government against its own citizens. The meeting had taken place on October 12^th, 2019.

Yoleri, in her speech, criticized Turkey’s incursion to Syria and the Rojava enclave there. Turkey has banned nearly all criticism of its operations against its neighbor Syria. State high officials openly threatened anyone from speaking against Turkey’s adventure into Syria and likened those who do so to traitors. Even those who had used words such as “invasion” or “occupation” face harsh prison terms in Turkey.

After giving her statement at the police headquarters and explaining why she spoke against Turkey’s intervention against Rojova, the co-chair of the Human Rights Association was released.

Sendika.Org News (M.B.)