Turkish police break up mothers' protest in Istanbul

Turkish police broke up a vigil in Istanbul on Saturday and arrested activists, as mothers remembered sons and daughters disappeared during a military crackdown 20 years ago.

Tear gas and water cannon were used to disperse vigil in Istanbul, which is organised by mothers of mostly Kurdish men and women who disappeared during security sweeps in the 1980s and 1990s.

Among those arrested was veteran Saturday Mothers protest leader Emine Ocak, who is reportedly aged 82.

Since May 1995, hundreds of mothers have gathered in Istanbul every Saturday - bar for a ten year freeze - to remember the mostly the disappeared, allegedly at the hands of Turkish state security.

It happened during the two turbulent decades after the 1980 military coup, which coincided with an insurgency in Kurdish areas of Turkey.

Saturday Mothers (Cumatesi Anneleri in Turkish) weekly demonstrations were cancelled between the years 1999 to 2009, after tough police intervention, but around 700 have taken place since 1995.

Turkey allowed the protests to take place under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - under the watchful eye of the police - but Saturday's clampdown has sparked fears of more state intervention against the weekly mothers' gatherings.

Ankara claims the protest was organised by social media accounts linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and that no official application for the gathering was made.

Frictions between the Kurdish community and Turkish government have re-emerged after a new PKK insurrection and Turkish security sweep in the south of the country.