Mithat Sancar (born 1963) is a Turkish professor of

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

and

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

, columnist, and translator of Arab descent. He has been an MP for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the

Turkish parliament The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( tr, ), usually referred to simply as the TBMM or Parliament ( tr, or ''Parlamento''), is the unicameral Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by the Turkish Consti ...

since the June 2015 general election and was elected Co-Chair of the party in February 2020.

Biography

Early life and academic career

Born 1963 in

Nusaybin Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is ...

, Sancar attended high school in

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...

before going to Ankara University, where he graduated majoring in public law. In 1995, following his graduation, he received his Ph.D. in constitutional law with a thesis on the "Interpretation of Basic Rights" ( tr, Temel Hakların Yorumu). From 1985-1990, he was employed as a research assistant in the Faculty of Law of the Dicle University. Since 1999, he has been a lecturer and since 2007 a full professor at Ankara University. Together with fellow scholar , he translated Jürgen Habermas' first major work " Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit" into the Turkish language.

Political activism

Mithat Sancar is one of the founders of the Ankara-based

Human Rights Foundation The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a non-profit organization that focuses on promoting and protecting human rights globally, with an emphasis on closed societies. HRF organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. The Human Rights Foundation was founded i ...

(TİHV, est. 1990) and the (TİHAK, est. 1999). Between 1998 and 2003, Sancar and his colleague Tanıl Bora organized the

Human Rights Association The Human Rights Association ( tr, İnsan Hakları Derneği, İHD) is an NGO for advancing Human rights in Turkey, founded in 1986 and headquartered in Ankara. Establishment The İHD's origins can be traced to the victims of the purges in the ...

's (İHD) annual conference on the

Human rights movement Human rights movement refers to a nongovernmental social movement engaged in activism related to the issues of human rights. The foundations of the global human rights movement involve resistance to: colonialism, imperialism, slavery, racism, segr ...

in Turkey. Since 2007, he has been a columnist for the leftist

BirGün ''BirGün'' (''One Day'') is an Istanbul-based Turkish left-wing daily. The paper was founded in 2004 by a group of Turkish intellectuals. The most important point of the newspaper is that it is not owned by any parent company or conglomerate. ...

newspaper. He also wrote for the newspapers Taraf.

Parliamentary career

Ahead of the June 2015 general election, Sancar was asked by HDP leader

Selahattin Demirtaş Selahattin Demirtaş (born 10 April 1973) is a politician, author, and former member of the parliament of Turkey. He was the co-leader of the left-wing pro- Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside Figen Yüksekdağ from 2014 ...

, one of his former students, to run for parliament. After some hesitation, he agreed to suspend his academic career in order to help the HDP over the 10% threshold. Heading the party's electoral list in the Mardin constituency, he was elected a member of the

Grand National Assembly Great National Assembly or Grand National Assembly may refer to: * Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia, an assembly of Romanian delegates that declared the unification of Transylvania and Romania * Great National Assembly (Socialist Republic of R ...

. In the subsequent November 2015 snap election and in the General Election 2018 he was reelected. He is currently a Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly. In November 2015, Sancar and Erol Dora joined fellow MPs Gülser Yıldırım and

Ali Atalan Ali Atalan (born 5 January 1968 in Midyat) is a Kurdish-German politician of Yazidi faith. He is a former member of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia with Die Linke in Germany, and the Turkish Parliament with the Peoples' Democratic Party (H ...

in their

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

to protest the ongoing

state of exception A state of exception (german: Ausnahmezustand) is a concept introduced in the 1920s by the German philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt, similar to a state of emergency (martial law) but based in the sovereign's ability to transcend the rule of law ...

curfew in the border town of

, where since November 13 and under the pretext of operating against militant

YDG-H The Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement ( ku, Tevgera Ciwanen Welatparêzên Şoreşger, tr, Yurtsever Devrimci Gençlik Hareket, YDG-H) was the urban, militant youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from 2006-2015. Trained by mor ...

members, 70% of the neighborhoods have been cut from electricity, 30% from water supply. On 23 February 2020, Sancar was elected Co-Chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party along with

Pervin Buldan Pervin Buldan (born 6 November 1967) is a Turkish politician. She was a member of the Democratic Society Party (DTP). She is President of Yakay-Der and one of the deputy speakers in the 26th Parliament of Turkey. On 11 February 2018, she was el ...

who was re-elected.

Legal prosecution

According to an interview he gave Sancar was accused of having insulted the President for having declared the Turkish government was in part responsible for the terrorist attack against a HDP rally in Ankara and for having also said to the authorities that a conflict should be prevented in Cizre. Then he is also prosecuted for Propaganda for the PKK because he has supported the opening of Kurdish schools. The State Prosecutor at the

Court of Cassation A court of cassation is a high-instance court that exists in some judicial systems. Courts of cassation do not re-examine the facts of a case, they only interpret the relevant law. In this they are appellate courts of the highest instance. In th ...

in Turkey

Bekir Şahin Bekir Şahin (born 1 March 1960, Mecitözü, Turkey) is a jurist, former judge and the current State Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation in Turkey. Education He was educated at the Imam Hatip school and studied law at the Dokuz Eylül Universi ...

filed a lawsuit before the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

on the 17 March 2021, demanding for Sancar and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban for political activities. The lawsuit was filed jointly with a request for the HDP to be shut down due to the parties alleged organizational links with the PKK.

Personal life

Sancar is married to Türkan Sancar and the cousin of the

Nobel prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

laureate in 2015, Aziz Sancar. Sancar considers

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

his

native language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

, while

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

was the language he spoke on the street. Besides these, he speaks Turkish,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Books

* Devlet Aklı” Kıskacında Hukuk Devleti (2000) * Mülteciler veİltica Hakkı (2002, co-authored by Bülent Peker) * Geçmişle Hesaplaşma - Unutma Kültüründen Hatırlama Kültürüne (2007)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sancar, Mithat 1963 births Living people People from Nusaybin Turkish people of Arab descent Turkish legal scholars Ankara University Faculty of Law alumni Academic staff of Ankara University Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) politicians Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey Deputies of Mardin Members of the 27th Parliament of Turkey Deputy Speakers of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey