Selahattin Demirtaş (born 10 April 1973) is a politician, author,
and former member of the
parliament 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 ...
. He was the co-leader of the left-wing pro-
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 ...
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside
Figen Yüksekdağ
Figen Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu (born 19 December 1971) is a Turkish politician and journalist, who was a former co-leader of the left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey from 2014 to 2017, serving alongside Selahattin Demirtaş. She was ...
from 2014 to 2018.
Demirtaş was the presidential candidate of the HDP in the
2014 presidential election, coming in third place. He led the HDP to gather 13.1% at the
June 2015 parliament elections and 10.7% in the snap elections in
November 2015, coming 4th in each election. He has been imprisoned since 4 November 2016 and despite his imprisonment the HDP fielded Demirtaş as its candidate for the
2018 presidential election, running
his campaign from prison.
In a judgement given in December 2020, the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
judged that, given "the timing of
emirtaşcontinued detention (coinciding with an important constitutional referendum and the presidential election)" and Turkey's "systemic trend of “gagging” dissenting voices", Demirtaş's continued pre-trial detention's political purpose had been predominant".
Early life and education
Selahattin Demirtaş was born in
Palu
Palu, which is officially known as the City of Palu (Indonesian: ''Kota Palu''), is the capital and largest city of Central Sulawesi. Palu is located on the northwestern coast of Sulawesi and borders Donggala Regency to the north and west, Pari ...
in 1973, where he completed both his primary and secondary education. From 1991 he studied maritime commerce and management at the
Dokuz Eylül University
Dokuz Eylül University ( tr, Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi) (DEÜ) is a university in İzmir, Turkey. It was founded in 1982 and is organized in 15 faculties. DEU is the first university which applied the problem-based learning method in Turkey, ...
,
where he would face political problems that would force him to leave school without finishing his degree. He returned to
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, ...
and retook the university entrance exam in 1993, after which he enrolled at the
Ankara University Law Faculty.
Professional career
After his graduation, Demirtaş worked as a freelance lawyer for a while. In 2000 he became a member of the executive committee at the Diyarbakır branch of 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 ...
(IHD).
The IHD Chair at the time was
Osman Baydemir
Osman Baydemir (born 1971 in Diyarbakır) is a Turkish politician, lawyer and human rights activist of Kurdish descent. He was the mayor of his home town of Diyarbakır from 2004 to 2014. He was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey ...
who was elected as the mayor of Diyarbakır at the following local election. Demirtaş replaced him as the chair of the Diyarbakır IHD in 2004.
During his term as chair, the association focused heavily on the increasing unsolved political murders in Turkey.
Early political career
He cites his experience at the funeral of politician and human right lawyer
Vedat Aydın
Vedat Aydın (19537July 1991) was a Kurdish politician and human rights defender. He was married to Sükran Aydın.
Early life and education
He was born in 1953 in a village in Bismil, Diyarbakir. He graduated from the Literary department of ...
(1953–1991) as a political awakening:
I became a different person. My life's course changed … although I didn't fully understand the reason behind the events, now I knew: we were Kurds, and since this wasn't an identity I would toss away, this was also my problem."
From international observers often dubbed as a Kurdish
Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
Demirtaş started his political career as a member 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) in 2007 at which time he stood as one of the '
Thousand Hope Candidates
The Thousand Hope Candidates (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Bin Umut Adayları'') was an electoral alliance between four left-wing political parties in Turkey, formed in preparation for the 2007 Turkish general election, 2007 general election. The ...
' for the DTP and several other democratic organizations in Turkey. He was elected to the 23rd Parliament and became the Parliamentary Chief Officer for the party at the age of 34. As such he supported the abolition of the restrictions against education in the
Kurdish language
Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...
and demanded equal rights for Turks and Kurds in the
Turkish constitution
The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Anayasası), also known as the Constitution of 1982, is Turkey's fundamental law. It establishes the organization of the government and sets out the principles and rules of ...
. When in October 2007
an article published in the
Bolu Ekspress demanded politicians of the DTP to be killed for deaths caused by the
Kurdistan Workers' Party
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 south ...
(PKK) he filed a complaint but the court decided it fell into the bounds of "freedom of thought" in 2008. Demirtaş then appealed to the ECHR for a violation of the 2 and 13 Articles of the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
, but in 2015 the ECHR ruled in favor Turkey.
![Selahattin Demirtaş and Martin Schulz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Selahattin_Demirta%C5%9F_and_Martin_Schulz.jpg)
The
DTP was closed down by a Supreme Court order in 2009 for the parties alleged connections to the PKK, and the DTP MPs moved to the
Peace and Democracy Party
The Peace and Democracy Party ( tr, Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, ku, Partiya Aştî û Demokrasiyê, BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014.
Development
BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 20 ...
(BDP). The BDP held its first congress in 2010 and elected Selahattin Demirtaş and
Gültan Kışanak
Gültan Kışanak (born 15 June 1961) is a Kurdish journalist, author and politician from Turkey. Kışanak was born in Elazığ in 1961. Her family is originally from Dersim. She is a former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and ...
as its new co-chairs. Demirtaş contested the
2011 elections as part of the joint '
Labor, Democracy and Freedom' list endorsed by the BDP and 18 different democratic political organizations, this time for
Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to:
*Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq
*Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey
*Hakkâri Province
Hakkâri Province (, tr, Hakkâri ili, ...
. He was re-elected to parliament as an independent.
At a rally in the
Kızıltepe
Kızıltepe ( ku, Qoser, ota, Tell-Ermen, lit=Armenian hill ) is a town and district in Mardin Province of Turkey. As of 2021, the district had a population of 263,938, making it the most populous district in the province.
Government
In the lo ...
district of
Mardin
Mardin ( ku, Mêrdîn; ar, ماردين; syr, ܡܪܕܝܢ, Merdīn; hy, Մարդին) is a city in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on ...
in November 2012, Demirtaş criticized the Turkish police for intervening after marchers carried posters 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 ...
, saying "I call on you, those who are not bothered about the Kurds’ killer
Evren’s statue being erected
r byschools named after Evren. If they
urdscannot hang Öcalan’s poster in Kurdistan, then where would they hang it? We will go further and erect his statue." In 2019, Demirtaş defended his statement in court, arguing that he was responding to how posters were met with
panzers
Nazi Germany developed numerous tank designs used in World War II. In addition to domestic designs, Germany also used various captured and foreign-built tanks.
German tanks were an important part of the Wehrmacht and played a fundamental role du ...
and
truncheons, and that he is opposed to erecting statues of Öcalan.
Opposition leader
Peace process 2013
![2014 Turkish Presidential Election-Demirtaş](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/2014_Turkish_Presidential_Election-Demirta%C5%9F.PNG)
Demirtaş was the co-chair of BDP during the period when the
peace process
A peace process is the set of political sociology, sociopolitical negotiations, agreements and actions that aim to solve a specific armed conflict.
Definitions
Prior to an armed conflict occurring, peace processes can include the prevention of ...
and negotiations kick-started in Turkey. He was one of the BDP politicians who met Öcalan on
Imrali island during the peace negotiations.
2014 Presidential campaign
In 2014 Demirtaş and
Figen Yüksekdağ
Figen Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu (born 19 December 1971) is a Turkish politician and journalist, who was a former co-leader of the left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey from 2014 to 2017, serving alongside Selahattin Demirtaş. She was ...
were elected as the co-chairs of the
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) – a new initiative originating from a three-year-old coalition of the BDP and various different political parties and organization under the auspices of the
Peoples' Democratic Congress
, logo = Peoples' Democratic Congress.png
, logo_size = 200px
, leader1_title = Spokesman
, leader1_name = Ertuğrul Kürkçü
, leader2_title = Spokeswoman
, leader2_name = Sebahat Tuncel
, foundation ...
(HDK) - for the
2014 presidential elections of Turkey, being one of three candidates and hoping to attract left-wing voters. He came third with 9.77% of the vote.
2014 Municipal elections
He stressed that
gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
and a women quota is preeminent in their party program for the elections and announced in October 2013, that for the Metropolis
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, ...
a female mayor was planned. In the
Municipal elections of 2014,
Gültan Kisanak was elected the Mayor of Diyarbakir, and
Februnye Akyol Co-Mayor of
Mardin
Mardin ( ku, Mêrdîn; ar, ماردين; syr, ܡܪܕܝܢ, Merdīn; hy, Մարդին) is a city in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on ...
.
June 2015 general elections
![HDP November election manifesto 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/HDP_November_election_manifesto_3.jpg)
Demirtaş was co-leader along with Figen Yüksekdağ during the
June 2015 Turkish general election
General elections were held in Turkey on 7 June 2015 to elect 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. This was the 24th general election in the history of the Turkish Republic, electing the country's 25th Parliament. The result was the f ...
, the party's first campaign in a general election. The HDP came in fourth place with 13.12% of the vote, breaking for the first time the 10%
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
to enter the parliament,
sending 80 HDP representative there out of 550 seats.
The election results were largely perceived to be a surprise for the opposition, with the HDP having surpassed the election threshold by a healthy 3% of the vote despite many pollsters claiming that it was hovering at the 10% boundary.
HDP co-leader Demirtaş was widely seen as the victor of the election, in the sense that as well as exceeding many vote share projections, his party won the same amount of MPs (80 seats) as the
Nationalist Movement Party
The Nationalist Movement Party (alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party; tr, Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) is a Turkish far-right and ultranationalist political party. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has been ...
. The international press characterized Demirtaş as the 'Kurdish
Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
' and supporters of the HDP took to the street to celebrate their success on the evening of polling day. Celebrating the victory, Dermirtaş stated: "From now on, the HDP is Turkey's party. HDP is Turkey, Turkey is HDP."
Other commentators noted the rising difficulties ahead, Demirtaş risking to be undercut by Occalan's political influence, the mechanical rise of anti-Kurdish sentiment among Turkey nationalist forces,
and the need to not alienate
tactical voters.
Peace talks collapse
![HDP Cizre (8)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/HDP_Cizre_%288%29.jpg)
In July 2015, the peace process initiated by AKP and PKK leadership and facilitated by HDP collapsed. Demirtaş attributes this collapse to AKP, responding to the June election's votes loss to following parties, loss of its governing majority, and relative electoral defeat. According to Demirtaş, AKP bleeding votes in polls lead this party to reignited the war against PKK. In July 2015, observing an increase in violence between PKK-affiliated parties and Turkish authorities, Demirtaş opposed violence from both parties and called for a higher political autonomy in
South-East Turkey.
March on Cizre
When in early September 2015 the Turkish authorities imposed a curfew on the city of
Cizre
Cizre (; ar, جَزِيْرَة ٱبْن عُمَر, Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, or ''Madinat al-Jazira'', he, גזירא, Gzira, ku, Cizîr, ''Cizîra Botan'', or ''Cizîre'', syr, ܓܙܪܬܐ ܕܒܪ ܥܘܡܪ, Gāzartā,) is a city in the Cizre Dis ...
HDP parliamentarians around Demirtas went on a march on Cizre, but were prevented from entering the city by the Turkish authorities who alleged security concerns.
He was allowed in the city only after the curfew was lifted on the 12 September.
November 2015 general election
In August 2015, two months after the
June 2015 general elections and one month after the return to military confrontation with PKK, early general election were announced for November 2015. HDP, led by Demirtaş, came third, securing 10,7% of the vote, merely passing the parliament's 10% threshold.
2016 to 2018 Presidential campaign
In May 2016, the Turkish parliament revoked the
parliamentary immunity
Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which politicians such as president, vice president, governor, lieutenant governor, member of parliament, member of legislative assembly, member of legislative council, s ...
for several HDP politicians including the HDP leadership.
Following the
2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt
On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize cont ...
, Demirtaş stated in his statement on 16 July that he was against the coup and that the attempt was an indication that there was still no democracy in Turkey. On July 25, Erdogan invite and met with major opposition leaders, except HDP leadership and Dermirtaş.
On November 4, 2016, few months after the
2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt
On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize cont ...
and in the mist of
large scale purges, Demirtaş was arrested along with
Figen Yüksekdağ
Figen Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu (born 19 December 1971) is a Turkish politician and journalist, who was a former co-leader of the left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey from 2014 to 2017, serving alongside Selahattin Demirtaş. She was ...
and other HDP MPs, accused of spreading propaganda for militants fighting the Turkish state. Demirtaş stated he is not a "manager, member, spokesperson, or sympathizer" of the armed PKK group.
Demirtaş was officially announced as the candidate of the
People's Democratic Party People's Democratic Party or ''variant thereof'', could refer to:
* People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
*People's Democratic Party (Belize)
*People's Democratic Party (Bhutan)
*People's Democratic Party (Chile)
* People's Democratic Party (Dom ...
(HDP) on May 4, 2018, for the
presidential election
A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President.
Elections by country
Albania
The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public.
Chile
The pre ...
, after members of the party had hinted at his candidacy weeks in advance. Party leader
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 ...
declared that Demirtaş, the jailed former co-chair of the HDP, would be leading a five-party "Kurdish alliance" into the general election. He received 8.4% of the votes.
Legal prosecution and detention
Initial arrest and motive
Demirtaş was arrested on 4 November 2016. The criminal indictment against Demirtaş alleged that in a public statement on the 6 October, the HDP raised support for protests against claimed approach of the Turkish Government shows towards the
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
(IS)
attack on Kobane.
The HDP was blamed for the
Kobanî protests in 2014, which resulted in the death of over 50 people
despite it having called for an investigation on the events leading to the deaths in parliament which was turned down by the
Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the
Nationalist Movement Party
The Nationalist Movement Party (alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party; tr, Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) is a Turkish far-right and ultranationalist political party. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has been ...
(MHP).
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep may refer to:
People Surname
* Aziz Recep (born 1992), German-Greek footballer
* Sibel Recep (born 1987), Swedish pop singer
Given name
* Recep Adanır (born 1929), Turkish footballer
* Recep Akdağ (born 1960), Turkish physician and poli ...
blamed Demirtaş for provoking protests, and said that all Kurdish people are the citizens of
Republic of Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, and no one can attempt to build a state for them. Demirtaş's repeatedly stated opposition to both PKK and TSK violences,
calling killed Turkish soldiers "the children of this country, our children", and declaring "No one has anything to win from a civil war in Turkey. Just look at Syria and Iraq.”
His prosecution also used
wiretaps
Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...
as evidence to show relation with the
Democratic Society Congress
The Democratic Society Congress (, ) is a pro-Kurdish NGO favouring the implementation of Democratic Confederalism in Turkish politics. Its foundation congress was held between 26-29 October 2007.
Structure
It has 2 co-chairs, a chairman and ...
(DTK), which the prosecution views as a part of the PKK.
Main prosecution and appeals
On 18 January 2017, Turkish prosecutors announced they were seeking a 142-year prison sentence for Demirtaş and according to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', more than hundred charges have been brought against Demirtaş.
On the 7 September 2018 he was sentenced to 4 years and 8 months for a speech he had made at a
Newroz
Newroz or Nawroz ( ku, نەورۆز, Newroz) is the Kurdish celebration of Nowruz; the arrival of spring and new year in Kurdish culture. The lighting of the fires at the beginning of the evening of March 21 is the main symbol of Newroz among t ...
celebration on the 20 March 2013.
2018 and 2020 ECHR's judgements
On 20 November 2018 the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
(ECHR) ruled Demirtaş should be released from preliminary detention, and ordered Turkey to pay him 25'000 Euros. On 30 November 2018 a court in Turkey ruled he shall remain detained despite the ECHR ruling to release him. According to the verdict by the Turkish court, the ruling of the ECHR was not definitive and therefore not binding. The sentence he received the 7 September 2018 was upheld on 4 December 2018 by an appeal court.
On the 31 December 2018 the lawyers of Demirtaş appealed the sentence at the Constitutional Court.
On December 22, 2020, the ECHR condemns Turkey and called again for the release of Selahattin Demirtaş.
About 50 translations available
) The Court deemed the lifting of the parliamentary immunity and the subsequent pre-trial detentions as politically motivated because this step came only after the governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP) had lost its majority in
parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
.
Other prosecutions
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 him and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban to engage in politics together with a
closure of the HDP due to alleged organizational cooperation with the PKK.
A few days later on the 22 March 2021, Demirtas was sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment for having
insulted 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 ...
by mentioning he had "fluttered from corridor to corridor" trying to meet the
Russian president
The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federal ...
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
during a summit in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. The remarks were made after Demirtas's return from Russia at the
Atatürk Airport
Atatürk Airport (former IATA code: IST) ( tr, Atatürk Havalimanı) is a general aviation airport in Istanbul. It used to be an intercontinental passenger and cargo hub and closed to commercial passenger flights on 6 April 2019 when all fli ...
in
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, ...
.
Detention
Since 4 November 2016 he is detained in the prison in the
F-Type prison Edirne
Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis (Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, ...
,
a border town near Greece and Bulgaria, far away from
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, ...
in South-Eastern Turkey, where his family lives at. His wife visits him once a week. ECHR called for releasing Demirtaş and stated that his arrest in 2016 violated his freedom of speech and the right of joining to the elections. According to HDP speaker
Saruhan Oluç, he is not allowed to receive visits by parliamentarians of the HDP. Since the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
his visitors rights are restricted to non-contact visits. As his wife informed the public on in an interview with
Ismail Küçükkaya on
FOX TV
The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...
about it, the
Radio and Television Supreme Council
Radio and Television Supreme Council ( tr, Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu), also known in short as RTÜK, is the Turkish state agency for monitoring, regulating, and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts. RTÜK was founded in 1994 and is ...
(RTÜK) initiated an investigation on the program due to her remarks. In November 2022, he was flown to Diyarbakir where he was shortly allowed to visit his father in hospital.
After the short visit, he was brought back to Edirne.
His cellmate was for years the fellow HDP politician
Abdullah Zeydan who was released in January 2022. In March the same year, the
arrested mayor of Diyarbakir Adnan Selçuk Mizrakli became his new cellmate.
Personal life
Demirtaş is of
Zaza
Zaza may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Zazas, a group of people in eastern Anatolia (southeastern Turkey)
* Zaza–Gorani languages, Indo-Iranian languages
** Zaza language, spoken by the Zazas
People Given name
* Zaza Sor. Aree (born 1993), Thai k ...
origin and he knows
Zaza language. Demirtaş was asked "Aren't you Zaza?" in a programme. In response to this question, he defined himself as "Kurdish Zaza".
Demirtaş is married to
Başak Demirtaş and is the father of two girls, Delal and Dılda. His parents are Tahir and Sadyie Demirtaş and he has six siblings.
Demirtaş has faced threats due to his political activity and on November 22, 2015, he survived an assassination attempt.
Electoral history
Presidential
Parliamentary
Local
Publications
In detention, he wrote a book titled ''
Seher'' containing short stories. The Turkish edition of ''Seher'' has reportedly sold more than 200,000 copies. He has also wrote the book ''
Devran'' in prison.
In 2020 the book ''Leylan'' was published and Demirtaş acknowledged he would prefer a career in literature than the one in politics.
Awards
In November 2019, the
Progressive Alliance
The Progressive Alliance (PA) is a political international of social democratic and progressive political parties and organisations founded on 22 May 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The alliance was formed as an alternative to the existing Social ...
awarded him their Political Courage Award. His wife Başak Demirtaş attended the award ceremony as he was still imprisoned at the time.
2022 Political courage Award by the Institute François Mitterrand.
Hişyar Özsoy of the HDP attended the award ceremony of Demirtaş behalf.
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Demirtas, Selahattin
1973 births
Living people
Ankara University Faculty of Law alumni
Democratic Society Party politicians
Deputies of Diyarbakır
Deputies of Hakkâri
Democratic Regions Party politicians
People from Palu, Elazığ
Leaders of the Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey)
Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey
Members of the 24th Parliament of Turkey
Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey
Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey
Human rights lawyers
Turkish Kurdish politicians
Kurdish politicians
People expelled from public office
Politicians arrested in Turkey
21st-century male writers
Kurdish jurists
Turkish people of Kurdish descent
Political prisoners in Turkey