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ights violations who worked regularly and patiently to force the disappeared thousands onto the
agenda of the Turkish society.” 4
For a long period of time, the state kept its silence. But as the protests continued and gained
social and political support while the oppression of security forces went on, it became to a point
where the government officials had to listen to the Saturday Mothers’ demands. In April 2011, after
exactly 16 years, the Human Rights Research Commission of the Turkish Parliament decided to pay
attention to them. “Although this political body does not have the power to initiate a trial of the
perpetrators, it makes victims’ voices accessible to all of Turkey through the mass media.” 5
Again in 2011, the Prime Minister of the day accepted two representatives of the Saturday
Mothers to hear their stories and demands. As a result of this meeting, the state declared that these
two people had been killed. 6
Obviously these two attempts did not produce the desired outcomes. But within these long years
of civil disobedience, the Saturday Mothers have become known at the global scale, just like the
Argentinean Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, the Bosnian Mothers of Srebrenica, and the Committee of
Families of the Disappeared and Detained in Lebanon. Recently, in September 2013, The Saturday
Mothers received the Hrant Dink Foundation Award 7 , named in honor of the assassinated journalist
Hrant Dink. The award is given to people or organizations that aim to make the world free “from
discrimination, racism and violence, who take personal risks for achieving those ideals, who break the
stereotypes and use the language of peace and by doing so give inspiration and hope to others.” 8 The
award made them visible in mass media once again, but as it always has been, it was a time‐limited
visibility again.
Apart from the sporadic news appeared in mainstream media coverage, the Saturday Mothers
received real attention from alternative media’s regular coverage of their protests. 2000s are also the
time when the Internet and online alternative media became widespread in Turkey, which enabled
the Saturday Mothers to raise their voices and tell their stories in public frequently. As a site of
alternative communication, one of the major missions of alternative media is to open up a space for
the subaltern and oppressed groups to become visible and most importantly have a voice. In the case
of the Saturday Mothers also have a face, an image, a story, a life both for their disappeared loved
ones and for themselves.
I reviewed four representatives of alternative media to see how they narrate the stories of the
Saturday Mothers, namely BIA (Independent Communication Network), Başka Haber (Other News),
SoL (LefT) and Sendika (Union). There are surprisingly only a few news stories about Saturday
Mothers in the feminist alternative media, i.e. Feminist Politics and Amargi. The coverage of peaceful
sit‐ins and the Saturday Mothers in alternative media until September 2014 is as follows: 293 news
stories via BIA since 2001; 153 news stories via Başka Haber since 2009; 117 news stories via SoL
since 2007; and 65 news stories via Sendika since 2009. When I categorized and analyzed these news
stories, I came up with four types of news content: First, calls that are made every week for joining
the protests; second, opinion pieces of columnists from various media outlets including mainstream
media; third, awards, visitors (i.e. Plaza De Mayo mothers, Bono), meetings (i.e. meeting with prime
minister); and fourth, stories of the disappeared that are remembered every week at the Galatasaray
Square, how they were taken away and, legal and political struggle of their families to find them
and/or their remains.
By focusing on the latter, I will try to summarize my findings about the stories that are delivered
through alternative media on the Saturday Mothers. But before that I need to mention a few
characteristics of alternative media. Small‐scale alternative media always have the downside of
addressing an alternative ghetto, which means the audiences of alternative media outlets are a
certain amount of people who are politically active and already aware of the unseen images and
unheard voices. As Nick Couldry 9 argues, “having a voice requires both practical resources and the
status necessary if one is to be recognized by others as having a voice. Narrative, as a process is