Sebahat Tuncel (born 5 July 1975) is a Turkish politician of

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 ...

origin, women's rights advocate, former nurse and member of the Parliament in Turkey. She was elected a member of parliament while being in prison.

Early life and education

She was born in

Yazıhan Yazıhan ( ku, Patrîkxan) is a district of Malatya Province of Turkey. The mayor is Nevzat Öztürk ( AKP). Main economical activities are agriculture and trade. Notable People * Sebahat Tuncel Sebahat Tuncel (born 5 July 1975) is a Turki ...

and studied cartography and land surveying in

Mersin Mersin (), also known as İçel, is a large city and a port on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of Mersin Province, Mersin (İçel) Province. It is made up of four municipalities and dis ...

University, before beginning her political career through the Women's Branch of the

People's Democracy Party People's Democracy Party ( tr, Halkın Demokrasi Partisi, HADEP) was a Kurdish population, Kurdish political party in Turkey. Murat Bozlak founded the party on 11 May 1994. The party disbanded in 2003. History Bozlak's first chairmanship P ...

(HADEP) in 1998. After she was involved in the foundation of the

Democratic Society Party The Democratic Society Party ( tr, Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP, Kurdish: ''Partiya Civaka Demokratîk'', PCD) was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the So ...

(DTP), she became the spokesperson of its women's assembly. Subsequently she was the vice co-chairperson and

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

deputy of the DTP, She has also worked with international organizations such as

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

(UNDP) and

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

(AI).

Political career

She was arrested on 5 November 2006 for alleged membership in the

PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sout ...

. But after she ran as an independent candidate within the Thousand Hopes alliance for the parliamentary

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

from

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

and after winning a seat in Istanbul with 93,000 votes, she was released from custody in July 2007. She was elected to the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey 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 ...

from prison to the surprise of many. In the parliamentary election of 2011, she was an independent candidate to parliament supported by the Labor, Democracy and Freedom Block, and was elected as an MP for Istanbul's first electoral district. After her election she led a movement which criticized the fact that

Hatip Dicle Mehmet Hatip Dicle (born 1955, Diyarbakir, Turkey), is a Kurdish politician from Turkey. He was a member of the Democracy Party, the of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). Early life and education Dicle grew up in a family with Islamic value ...

was not allowed to assume his seat in parliament even though he was elected. In 2013 she was elected co-chair of the HDP together with

Ertuğrul Kürkçü Ertuğrul Kürkçü (born 5 May 1948) is a Turkish politician, socialist activist and the current Honorary President of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) as of 22 June 2014 and Honorary Associate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of ...

. In May 2016 she was elected co-chair of the

Democratic Regions Party The Democratic Regions Party ( tr, Demokratik Bölgeler Partisi, DBP, ku, Partiya Herêman a Demokratîk, PHD) is a Kurdish political party in the Republic of Turkey. The pro-minority rights Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) acts as the fratern ...

(DBP) together with Kamuran Yüksek. As by September 2016 several Mayors of the DBP were removed, the DBP Co-chair Tunnel invited the mayors to work on for the people from the parties buildings instead of the municipalities.

Political views

She demands a further improvements for the cultural rights of the Kurdish population in Turkey and accused the AKP and the Kemalist

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...

of stalling negotiations on the matter.

Recognition of Armenian genocide

Sebahat Tuncel has made a number of statements for Turkey to recognize the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...

.In November 2014, she presented the ''Armenian Genocide Recognition Bill'' in the Turkish parliament, urging the

Turkish President The president of Turkey, officially the president of the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanı), is the head of state and head of government of Turkey. The president directs the executive branch of the national govern ...

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to publicly apologize for the Armenian Genocide.

Prosecution and imprisonment

On 4 October 2016 she was taken into custody and arrested in November 2016. According to the International Law Bureau the prosecution demanded 130 years of imprisonment for terror related charges due to her membership in the legal party DTP and 16 statements and speeches she made during meetings and press conferences she held before meetings of the DBP. On 5 January 2018 she was sentenced to 2 years and three months in prison. In January 2019 she joined and ongoing hunger strike of

Leyla Güven Leyla Güven (born 6 May 1964, Cihanbeyli, Konya Province, Konya, Turkey) is Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey), HDP MP for Hakkari (electoral district), Hakkari, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) and former mayor of the municipali ...

demanding the end of the isolation of

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from ...

. In February 2019, while still in hunger strike, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison for being a member of a terrorist organization and making propaganda for a terrorist organization. In October 2020, she was included into investigations into the Kobanî protests of 2014. In September 2020, another sentence under the controversial Article 299 of Turkey's penal code over 11 months followed for insulting the Turkish president

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

. The sentence was given for calling Erdoğan an "enemy of women" in a speech in 2016. She had made this statement after two controversial statements of Erdoğan where in 2014 he had publicly said "women are not equal to men" and in 2016 he said "women who reject motherhood are deficient and incomplete". On 17 March 2021, the state prosecutor

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 ...

demanded for Tuncel and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban to engage in politics together with a closure of the HDP due to the parties alleged organizational unity with the PKK.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuncel, Sebahat 1975 births Living people People from Yazıhan Turkish Kurdish women Turkish Kurdish politicians 21st-century Kurdish women politicians Kurdish activists Kurdish women activists Kurdish Alevis Democratic Society Party politicians Democratic Regions Party politicians Leaders of the Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) Deputies of Istanbul Members of the 24th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey Female party leaders of Turkey Kurdish politicians Turkish prisoners and detainees Politicians arrested in Turkey People's Democracy Party politicians 21st-century Turkish women politicians 21st-century Turkish politicians Kurdish women's rights activists