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
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 ...
, 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