Faysal Sarıyıldız (born 10 April 1975,

Cizre Cizre () is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey. It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria–Turkey border and close to the Iraq–Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultura ...

) is a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and a former Member of Parliament representing the Sırnak Province,

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Education and early life

He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Harran in the province of Sanliurfa, and reported for the Kurdish newspapers Ülkede Gündem and Özgür Bakış. He was arrested in April 2009 and prosecuted for being a member of the

Kurdistan Communities Union The Kurdistan Communities Union (, KCK) is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalan's ideology of democratic confederalism. The KCK also serves as an umbrella group for several confederalist political parties o ...

(KCK).

Political career

He was elected to parliament in June 2011 as an independent supported by the

Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc The Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc ( Turkish: ''Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloğu'') was an electoral alliance formed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) with several other smaller left-wing parties and political movements in ...

, but was denied to assume his post as the court ruled the parliamentary immunity does not apply in his case. In January 2014, after a court decided the imprisonment their imprisonment violated their human rights, since they were elected as MPs, he was released from prison together with Selma Irmak, Gülser Yıldırım, Kemal Aktas and

Ibrahim Ayhan Ibrahim may refer to: * Ibrahim (name), including a list of people with the name ** Abraham in Islam * Ibrahim (surah), a surah of the Qur'an * Ibrahim (play), ''Ibrahim'' (play) or ''Ibrahim The Illustrious Bassa'', a 1676 tragedy by Elkanah Set ...

. Following they delivered their oath in parliament. He was re-elected as an MP representing Şırnak in the General elections of June 2015 and the snap elections of November 2015, then for the HDP. Sarıyıldiz was defending the wounded during the curfew in Cizre in the winter of 2015-16 and called the UN for help. In April 2016 he left Turkey for exile and Turkey issued an arrest warrant for him.

In exile

While in exile he was further on involved in the defense of Kurdish rights, and also kept being an MP for the Turkish Parliament. On 5 June 2017, the Turkish Interior Ministry announced that 130 people who are outside the country while being suspected of militant links will lose their

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

unless they return to Turkey within three months and meet government standards. Among the 130 people figured also Faysal Sarıyildız. On the 7 September 2017 he and Tuğba Hezer Öztürk were relieved from their duties in parliament for "absenteeism" by the vote of the majority of the parliamentarians. The next day the Constitutional Court confirmed their dismissal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sariyildiz, Faysal Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) politicians People expelled from public office Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 24th Parliament of Turkey People barred from public office 1975 births Living people People from Cizre Exiled Turkish politicians Turkish Kurdish people Turkish people of Kurdish descent