Ziya Pir (born 1970 in

Torul Torul is a town and district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. According to the 2010 census, population of the district is 12,385 of which 4,421 live in the town of Torul. The district covers an area of , and the town lies ...

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 ...

) is a Turkish and German entrepreneur and politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Early life and education

Born in Turkey, Pir mostly grew up in Western Germany. Affiliated with the German liberal-conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, in 1999, Pir joined the CDU German-Turkish Forum. In 2002, he was tasked by Turkish prime minister

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 ...

with developing an organization for

Turkish expatriates in Germany Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

, the Union of European-Turkish Democrats (UETD). Appalled by both the UETD's increasing alignment with the AKP party and Erdoğans increasingly authoritarian conduct, he later broke with both.

Political career in Turkey

Pir, who is a nephew of the famous ethnic Turkish co-founder of 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 ...

Kemal Pir Kemal Pir, also known as Laz Kemal (1952 in Güzeloluk, Gümüşhane Province – 7 September 1982 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) was a Turkish Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and one of the ethnically Turkish founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. I ...

, in 2015 decided to return to Turkey in order to join the newly founded pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP. In the June 2015 general election he was elected to represent his

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, ...

constituency 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 ...

and was later confirmed in the November 2015 snap election. In November 2016 he was arrested together with 10 other parliamentarians of the HDP party. He was released from detention after he delivered his testimony concerning an indictment around an alleged insult of a public officer to the prosecutor of Diyarbakir. In late 2017 he received a suspended sentence of 11 months and 20 days for calling the prosecutor who ordered raids on the Dicle Haber Ajansi,

Azadiya Welat ''Azadiya Welat'' (Kurdish for: "Freedom of the Country") was a newspaper in the Kurdish language published in Turkey. It was shut down on 28 August 2016 when police raided the newspaper's headquarters in Diyarbakir, taking all 27 staff into custo ...

, KURDÎ-DER and Aram Publishing in

province on 28 September 2015, during which 32 journalists were detained a "candidate as a palace jester". In December 2017, his parliamentary immunity was demanded to be lifted due to him organizing a protest while "sitting on the stairs" in front of the BDP party building in Diyarbakır. On the 17 March 2021, the Turkish state prosecutor before the Court of Cassation Bekir Şahin filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court demanding for Pir and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban on political activities. The lawsuit was filed together with request for a closure of the HDP due to their alleged organizational links with the PKK.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pir, Ziya 1970 births Living people Turkish emigrants to West Germany German politicians of Turkish descent Naturalized citizens of Germany People from Torul Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) politicians Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey Deputies of Diyarbakır