Filiz Kerestecioğlu Demir (born 31 January 1961) is a Turkish politician from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who currently serves as a Member of Parliament since the June 2015 general election.

Early life and career

Filiz Kerestecioğlu was born on 31 January 1961 in Gölcük and graduated from

Ankara University Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In North America, academic divisions are sometimes titled colleges, sc ...

in 1984. In 1987, she started working as a freelance lawyer. Between 1991 and 1992, she worked as a representative for the Nokta Magazine in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, also working as a Turkish and English language teacher there. In 1995, she participated in the production of a documentary called 'Women Exist' and wrote the music and lyrics for the song of the same name. She was a founding member of the Women's Rights Implementation Centre at the İstanbul Bar Association, and worked as the secretary for the Bar Association Foreign Relations Commission. Between 2004 and 2012, she worked as an editor for the Contemporary Law Magazine ''(Güncel Hukuk)''.

Political career

As a candidate for the Peoples' Democratic Party, Kerestecioğlu was elected as a Member of Parliament for İstanbul's second electoral district in the June 2015 general election. She was re-elected in the November 2015 snap general election despite her party's fall in the vote share. In Kerestecioğlu is a member of the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46-nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up of ...

(PACE) and currently serves as the third vice president of the PACE Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination. On 18 April 2018, following President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's call for a snap general election, Kerestecioğlu was rumoured to be a potential HDP candidate 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 p ...

. She denied a potential presidential run on the same day. But she was re-elected as an MP in the snap elections in June 2018. On the 17 March 2021, the State Prosecutor for the

Court of Cassation A court of cassation is a high-instance court that exists in some judicial systems. Courts of cassation do not re-examine the facts of a case; they only interpret the relevant law. In this, they are appellate courts of the highest instance. In ...

in Turkey

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 Univer ...

filed a lawsuit before the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

, demanding for Kerestecioğlu and 686 other politicians of the HDP a five-year ban for a political participation. The lawsuit was filed jointly with a request for the HDP to be shut down due to the parties alleged organizational ties with the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerestecioğlu, Filiz 1961 births Living people Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) politicians Ankara University Faculty of Law alumni Deputies of Istanbul 21st-century Turkish women politicians People from Gölcük Turkish people of Circassian descent Members of the 27th Parliament of Turkey