Mehmet Kamaç (born 1977,

Çatak Çatak (; ) is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Van Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,952 km2, and its population is 18,462 (2022). Its inhabitants are Kurds. As mayor Abdürrahman Şeylan from the Justice and Development Par ...

, Turkey) is a politician of the

Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party The Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (; , abbreviated as DEM Party) is a pro- Kurdish political party in Turkey. It is the legal successor of the Green Left Party and with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) handing over its work to this ...

(DEM Party) and since June 2023 a member of the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( ), usually referred to simply as the GNAT or TBMM, also referred to as , in Turkish, is the Unicameralism, unicameral Turkey, Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by ...

Early life and education

Mehmet Kamaç was born in

in the province of Van. He attended primary school in

Van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or ...

and completed high school in prison. In 1994, when he was seventeen years of age, he was arrested and imprisoned for seven years was imprisoned for seven years. After his release in 2000, he studied sociology at the

Atatürk University Atatürk University () is a public land-grant research university established in 1957 in Erzurum, Turkey, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska. The university comprises 23 faculties, 18 colleges, 8 institutes, and 30 research cente ...

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

Political career

Mehmet Kamaç was involved in the human rights organizations

Mazlumder The Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed (known as MAZLUMDER an abbreviation of its Turkish name: "İnsan Hakları ve Mazlumlar İçin Dayanışma Derneği") is a non-governmental human rights organization based in Turkey. ...

and Insander, and founded the Human and Freedom Party (PIA) in 2018. For the Turkish elections of 2018, in which the party was not permitted to participate, his party supported the

presidential campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referen ...

of Selahattin Demirtas. The PIA attempted for 2 years to become legally recognized as a party and Mehmet Kamaç also discussed the issue with politicians of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) but by May 2021, the PIA was still not recognized. Kamaç assumed it was because the Government did not want a party that represents Kurds. In the parliamentary election of May 2023, he was elected into the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing Diyarbakir for the YSP.{{Cite web , last=Şafak , first=Yeni , date=2023-06-19 , title=Diyarbakır Seçim Sonuçları - 2023 Genel Seçim Diyarbakır Oy Oranları {{! CANLI , url=https://www.yenisafak.com/secim-2023/diyarbakir-ili-secim-sonuclari , access-date=2023-06-19 , website=Yeni Şafak , language=tr-TR

References

Living people 1977 births Turkish sociologists Members of the 28th Parliament of Turkey Atatürk University alumni Turkish prisoners and detainees Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party politicians