Yildiz Akdogan (born 29 April 1973) is a Turkish-Danish politician, who was a member of the
Folketing for the
Social Democrats from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2014 to 2019. Along with
Özlem Cekic
Özlem Sara Cekic (born 7 May 1976) is a Danish-Kurdish former politician and member of parliament for the Socialist People's Party (SF), who is now general-secretary of the organisation Brobyggerne (the Bridge-builders) - Center for Dialog Cof ...
, she was one of the first female immigrant politicians to be elected to the Folketing.
Background
Akdogan was born in Turkey and was raised by her paternal grandparents for the first five-and-a-half years of her life. Her mother moved to
Esbjerg in Denmark shortly after her birth and her father was called up to do
military service in Turkey. The family were reunited in 1979, when Akdogan and her father moved to Denmark.
Prior to being elected to the Folketing, Akdogan received an
MSc
MSC may refer to:
Computers
* Message Sequence Chart
* Microelectronics Support Centre of UK Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
* MIDI Show Control
* MSC Malaysia (formerly known as Multimedia Super Corridor)
* USB mass storage device class (USB MSC ...
in
political science from
Aarhus University
Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...
in 2006. She had previously worked as a journalist for the Danish-Turkish newspaper ''Haber''. She has published widely on
social integration and
women's rights. Akdogan is a board member and spokesperson for the
Democratic Muslims, a network set up in the wake of the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
Political career
Akdogan was elected into parliament at the
2007 Danish general election
General elections were held in Denmark on 13 November 2007. The elections allowed prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to continue for a third term in a coalition government consisting of Venstre and the Conservative People's Party with parliam ...
, but was not reelected in the
2011 election. She received 2,599 votes, which was not enough to win her a seat in parliament. Instead she became the Social Democrats' primary substitute in the Copenhagen constituency. When
Karen Hækkerup
Karen Angelo Hækkerup (née Schmidt; born 12 June 1974) is a Danish politician representing the Social Democrats. She was Justice Minister of Denmark from 12 December 2013 to 10 October 2014.2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
. She failed to win reelection in
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
.
References
External links
Biography on the website of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget)
1973 births
Living people
People from Çorum
Aarhus University alumni
Danish Muslims
Turkish emigrants to Denmark
21st-century Danish women politicians
Women members of the Folketing
Members of the Folketing 2007–2011
Members of the Folketing 2011–2015
Members of the Folketing 2015–2019
{{Denmark-politician-stub