Opposition parliamentarians who were attending the commemoration

In this photo taken by Vedat Arık, four deputies representing the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) are trying to prevent Aret Dink from being arrested after police dispersed the crowd using tear gas and rubber bullets. Garo Paylan (R), Serpil Kemalbay (2R), Ahmet Şık (behind Dink), and Hüda Kaya (L) all cling to Dink’s arms while being pushed by riot police. Dink, the son of the journalist of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, murdered in 2007, doesn’t enjoy parliamentary immunity and he could have been arrested if the deputies surrounding him wouldn’t have intervened.

Saturday Mothers-Turkey’s most persistent dissidents

Noontime, on any given Saturday, in Galatasaray Square in the central Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, you will come across the same vigil of ageing women holding red carnations. They also hold up photographs – faded portraits, from the 1970s and 80s, and it is only time they break their silence to give commemorations that the […]