Biography
Originally a teacher,Sarıhan was active in the Turkish Teachers Association,joining its executive committee in 1967 and writing pro-union articles for its newspaper. She was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for these writings in 1971,but was released following a 1974 change of government. After her release,she began work on a law degree,graduating in 1976. She specialized in human rights cases,defending activists and intellectuals. In 1980,she was again imprisoned for "espousing antistate views" in her newspaper writing,this time for thirty-five days. [1]
In 1986,she founded the Contemporary Lawyers Association,becoming its president. Ten years later,she founded the Contemporary Women's Association to protest for women's rights. [1] In 1998,she led calls for the resignation of cabinet minister Işılay Saygın after Saygın defended the practice of virginity testing in an interview. [2]
Sarıhan was an active opponent of several proposals of the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan government,arguing that they were attacks on women's rights. She opposed an anti-adultery law in 2004,stating concern that it would primarily be used against women; [3] In 2007,she led protests against his party,expressing fears that it would seek to institute Sharia law. [4] the plans were later dropped. [5] The following year,she organized a rally of around 40,000 people to protest the lifting of a ban on head scarves in universities. [6] She is a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP). [7]
She was removed from the CHP candidate lists for the 2018 Elections. [8]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
