Zülküf Karatekin (born 1965, Kırkpınar,

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, ...

) is a Turkish engineer and politician of Kurdish descent. He was a member of the political parties Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP), the Democratic Society Party (DTP). He was elected the Mayor of Kayapinar and imprisoned during his second term in 2009.

Education

He completed his primary school in Kırkpınar village and high school in

. in 1986, Karatekin graduated from in Engineering and Architecture department from the Selçuk University in

Konya Konya () is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium (), although the Seljuks also called it D ...

Professional career

He started to work at Iller Bank in 1987. He was elected as a Member of the

Board of Directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

to the Chamber of Civil Engineers of the

Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects ( tr, Türk Mühendis ve Mimar Odaları Birliği, TMMOB for short) is a confederation of all chambers of architects and engineers in Turkey. The union was "established in 1954 by the Law 7 ...

(TMMOB) in 1996 and as the chairman of it in 1998. He was re-elected as the chairman for three terms. He was exiled to

Kastamonu Kastamonu is the capital district of the Kastamonu Province, Turkey. According to the 2000 census, population of the district is 102,059 of which 64,606 live in the urban center of Kastamonu. (Population of the urban center in 2010 is 91,012.) The ...

in 1999 and later his employment contract was terminated by Iller Bank.

Political career

In the 28 March 2004 elections, Karatekin was elected as the Mayor of Kayapinar representing the SHP. In 2005, Karatekin joined the DTP. During his tenure, he was investigated for having ordered to build a swimming pool in the shape of a

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, Kurdish la ...

in 2007. The pool was located in the Medya park, which was inaugurated in June 2007. Another park inaugurated during her mayorship was the ... Park, which did not have a name because its original name Rosna, was rejected by the State-Appointed Governorship. Karatekin was arrested in December 2009 due to suspected links to the

Kurdistan Communities Union The Kurdistan Communities Union ( ku, Koma Civakên Kurdistanê, italic=yes, KCK) is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalan's ideology of democratic confederalism. Öcalan, Abdullahbr>Declaration of Democratic ...

(KCK). During his detention he claimed that all of Diyarbakir was part of the KCK and that they wouldn't be able to change this by detaining him. He was tried together with other politicians of his party in the so-called KCK-trials and released in July 2014. Following his release was active in the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Later he decided to leave Turkey in 2020 and go to

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

into Austria. He arrived in

Fieberbrunn Fieberbrunn is a market town in the Austrian state of Tyrol (state), Tyrol in the Kitzbühel (district), Kitzbühel district. It is located at , in the Kitzbühel Alps. Fieberbrunn is the most populous municipality in the Pillerseetal valley. Acco ...

in Tyrol, where he applied for asylum.

In media

He was one of the interviewed politicians for the documentary ''Prison or Exile''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zulkuf Karatekin Living people 1965 births Mayors of places in Turkey Selçuk University alumni Democratic Society Party politicians