Letter from Saturday Mother Ocak: If We Give up, Justice will Never be Served

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To Elmas Eren, whom we lost on August 19, and to all our friends who passed away in our struggle for the disappeared...

Today is the International Day of the Disappeared. The United Nations chose August 30 to raise awareness for the disappeared and for what we, the families left behind, are going through. On such a day, I want to tell you one more time what I have been going through over the past 24 years.

I will tell you so that it will not be forgotten. I will tell you so that everyone will know how the mothers who cannot find their sons and daughters, who cannot see justice will continue standing on their feet.

It has been a year since Galatasaray, where we meet our disappeared every Saturday, has been banned to us. It has been a year since we cannot go to Galatasaray, where the police dragged us on the ground and which they closed by beating us. My wounds are bleeding on every Saturday for a year.

The blockade of the ones who do not feel ashamed of the cruelty imposed on me and my friends, with whom I have been sitting close together and struggling together for 24 years, has been continuing for a year.

They want that we do not search for our relatives that the state disappeared by abducting. They want that no one speaks about the crimes of this state. They want that no one raises an objection against the divergence from the justice, which is necessary for everyone.

On August 25, 2018, we, the Saturday Mothers and Saturday People, who are internationally known as the ones searching for their losses disappeared in custody, were going to gather at Galatasaray Square for the 700th time. We were going to ask the whereabouts of our hundreds of disappeared. Giving up on their living bodies, we were going to demand for the 700th time that our losses have a grave and the ones who disappeared them go on trial. I cannot understand how raising these demands can be banned.

Since our 700th week, or for the last 53 weeks, we have not been accepting this cruelty. We have never given up... Do you really believe that we will give up when we are surrounded, pushed and faced with police officers lined up before us with their shields?

I am one of the first mothers who took to Galatasaray on May 27, 1995.

My son Hasan Ocak was a teacher. He was a socialist who did not hurt anyone, who would rush to help everyone and who had a heart filled with love for humans and nature. He always had candies or gums in his pocket so that he could distribute them to children playing on the street.

He called me on March 21, 1995, he told me that he would buy fish and cake for the birthday of my daughter Aysel.

My Hasan did not come home again. Wherever we went, we were told, 'He is not here.' The ones who saw Hasan in custody said that the police were brutally torturing him. They told us, 'The name of Hasan was written on the list of the detained, we saw that.'

I met the families of the disappeared in detention before Hasan at Human Rights Association (İHD). I was not the first to experience this pain, this cruelty. It was back then that we started joining our sorrows and bringing hope to others so that others would not live something like that.

There was not a single place left that I did not appeal to. I was in a void, the uncertainty of what happened to my son cut me to the bone. But I never gave up searching my son.

I never lost my hope of finding my son. My children found the pictures of my son in the records of forensic medicine 58 days later. He was tortured, his beautiful face that I spared kissing was smashed to make him unrecognizable. My children did not show me those pictures. My Hasan was not abandoned, but they buried him in the Cemetery of the Nameless so that no one could see the torture he was subjected to. We took my Hasan from the Cemetery of the Nameless and buried him in our own cemetery. After that, we sat with the relatives of the disappeared and human rights defenders and decided to sit at Galatasaray Square quietly every Saturday so that no one would be disappeared in custody from then on.

Other families who heard that we sat in Galatasaray started joining us. We grew a lot in Galatasaray. We became brothers and sisters, we became sons and daughters, we became friends. As our voice started to be heard, the losses decreased as well. Thanks to our struggle, more people were not disappeared in detention. We became the guarantee of people's right to life. Thousands of people came to us in our 300th, 400th, 500th, 600th weeks. They carried our photographs with us in silence. They did not even applaud, because everyone knew that we sat in silence.

Voicing the crimes committed by the state has a price, too. There have always been the ones who do not want us there, who do not want us to say these crimes. They also detained us, they jailed us as well, but we kept on demanding our losses without parting, without giving up.

It was in 1997 or 1998. A young man came to us and kissed our hands. He was about to cry. His mother accompanying him was crying as well. We were surprised. Then, he started to talk. He said, "They held me in custody for 18 days, they tortured me a lot.

"They were keeping me in a separate place where no one could see me. They were telling me that they would disappear me in custody. When the police took me to the prosecutor's office, they told me, 'We were going to disappear you in detention, but we are releasing you. Otherwise, your mother would also go and join Saturday Mothers.' I am alive thanks to you."

When we listened to this young man, we were so relieved that it was as if we were sitting on top of the world on that day.

Galatasaray Square, where we carried the pictures of my son and hundreds of people disappeared in custody for 699 weeks, has been silent for 53 weeks. The then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, who told us that "our problem is the problem of his cabinet", is now the President. Can there be a President who does not fulfill his/her promise? The torture of the ones searching for their losses will not be forgotten even in a thousand years. We want that they plead guilty now, apologize to us and open our square.

Since Galatasaray was banned to us, the news about the disappeared have increased. They are still trying to learn the fate and whereabouts of two people. Are they preventing us in order to silence everyone and disappear people again? I am the mother of a son who was disappeared in custody, my heart aches whenever I hear a news about the disappeared and I want to take to the streets like every mother of disappeared.

I know it from the Argentinian mothers, with whom we came side by side for many times: If we give up, we will not be able to reach our losses.

If we give up, this country will keep on being the heaven of the ones who disappear people. If we give up, this country will keep on being the hell of the ones who search for their loved ones and demand justice.

If we give up, justice will never be served. I gave a promise to my friends who have abandoned us without finding their sons and daughters, their husbands and wives, their brothers and sisters.

They are waiting for the death of us all so that they will not be brought to account, they cannot escape from being brought to account.

We will not give up until the last loss of ours is found and the ones who disappear people are penalized.

I promised my friend Elmas last; one day, we will certainly carry the photographs of our children in Galatasaray, which belongs to us, which belongs to our losses.

August 30, 2019

Emine Ocak

* The picture was on the left taken by Ahmet Şık in 1997. The one on the right was taken by Hayri Tunç in the 700th week on August 25, 2018.

(EMK/SD)