Selim Sadak | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the Grand National Assembly | |
| In office 14 November 1991 –3 March 1994 | |
| Constituency | Şırnak (1991) |
| Mayor of Siirt | |
| In office 2009–2014 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Selim Sadak 1954 (age 69–70) Idil,Turkey |
| Education | Diyarbakır Eğitim Enstitüsü |
Selim Sadak,(born 1954 [1] ) is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin.
Selim Sadak was born in İdil and graduated from the Mathematics department of Diyarbakır Eğitim Enstitüsü. He then worked as a freelancer in Kurdish,English and Arabic.
He is married and has 10 children. [1]
In the 1991 Turkey Parliamentary general election,he joined Leyla Zana,Mahmut Alınak,Hatip Dicle,Orhan Doğan,Ahmet Türk,SırrıSakık and Sedat Yurtdaşin the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP) and was elected as the member of parliament for Şırnak in the 19th Parliament of Turkey. In March 1994,the parliamentary immunity was lifted from Selim Sadak,Orhan Dogan,Hatip Dicle and Leyla Zana. [2] On 16 June 1994 the Democracy Party (DEP) was closed down by the Turkish Constitutional Court,and Selim Sadak,along with other members of the party,were put in prison. Based on a decision by the State Security Court he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1994. [3] In April 2004 the European parliament condemned the imprisonment of Sadak and hoped for the quashing of the sentence in a resolution. [4] He was released in June 2004 following a decision of Turkey's Appeal Court. [5]
Following his release from prison,Sadak toured the countryside testing the possibilities of founding a new party. [6] At the time he saw it difficult a Kurdish party could be formed without referencing Öcalan. [6] Sadak along with Leyla Zana and Hatip Dicle set up the Democratic Society Party (DTP) and was elected mayor of Siirt under the DTP,receiving 49,4% of the votes in the local elections in March 2009. [7]
In December 2009,however,Turkey banned the DTP due to alleged links with the PKK and Selim Sadak as well as Ahmet Türk,Aysel Tuğluk,Leyla Zana and Nurettin Demirtaş,were banned from politics for 5 years. [8] In 2010 he was dismissed by the Interior Ministry as Mayor of Siirt after a sentence of 10 months imprisonment from 2008 got confirmed,a decision he objected. Then the Council of State Administrative Trials Board General Council overruled the decision of the Interior Ministry to dismiss Sadak and ruled he can stay Mayor of Siirt until the end of his term. [9] [10]
On 26 April 2010 he was sentenced of 1 year imprisonment because he used the word Kurdistan and on the 13 April to 10 months imprisonment for a photo depicted in a calendar of 2010. [11]
In August 2011 he was sentenced in Siirt Criminal Court to five months in prison,a sentence which was later converted to a fine. [12]
On 7 October 2011 he was sentenced in Diyarbakir court to one year and eight months prison for terrorist propaganda in relation to a speech that he made in 2007. [13]
Leyla Zana is a Kurdish politician. She was imprisoned for ten years for her political activism,which was deemed by the Turkish courts to be against the unity of the country. She was awarded the 1995 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament but was unable to collect it until her release in 2004. She was also awarded the Rafto Prize in 1994 after being recognized by the Rafto Foundation for being incarcerated for her peaceful struggle for the human rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and the neighbouring countries.
The Democratic Society Party was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the Socialist International. It was considered to be the successor of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP). The party was established in 2005 and succeeded in getting elected more than ninety mayors in the municipal elections of 2009. On 11 December 2009,the Constitutional Court of Turkey banned the DTP,ruling that the party has become "focal point of activities against the indivisible unity of the state,the country and the nation". The ban has been widely criticized both by groups within Turkey and by several international organizations. The party was succeeded by the Peace and Democracy Party.
Osman Baydemir is a Kurdish politician,lawyer and human rights activist. He was the mayor of his home town of Diyarbakır from 2004 to 2014. He was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and also the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP).
Sebahat Tuncel is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin,women's rights advocate,former nurse and member of the Parliament in Turkey. She was elected a member of parliament while being in prison.
Ahmet Türk is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). He has been a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for several terms and was elected twice as the Mayor of Mardin. He was born into a family of Kurdish clan and tribal chiefs in southeastern Turkey.
Gültan Kışanak is a Kurdish journalist,author and politician from Turkey. Kışanak was born in Elazığin 1961. Her family is originally from Dersim. She is a former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and Head of Municipality of Diyarbakır. She has been imprisoned since October 2016.
The People's Labour Party,sometimes translated as the People's Work Party,was a pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey.
The Democracy Party was a pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey founded on the 7 May 1993.
Mehmet Hatip Dicle,is a Kurdish politician from Turkey. He was a member of the Democracy Party,then of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
Orhan Doğan was a Kurdish human rights lawyer and politician of the Democratic Society Party.
The 19th Grand National Assembly of Turkey existed from November 6,1991,to December 24,1995,with most members having been elected in the 1991 election. The True Path Party of Süleyman Demirel gained a majority of seats in the Assembly,being followed by the Motherland Party,the Social Democratic Populist Party,the Welfare Party,and the Democratic Left Party in decreasing order.
The December 2009 Kurdish protests in Turkey were five days of protests in Turkey that ensued after a December 11,2009 ruling by the Constitutional Court of Turkey that banned the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP),after finding them guilty of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and spreading "terrorist propaganda."
Mahmut Alınak,is a Turkish lawyer,author and politician,of Kurdish origin,and a former parliamentary deputy.
Selma Irmak,is a Kurdish politician from Turkey and former MP for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and People`s Democratic Party (HDP).
The Labour,Democracy and Freedom Bloc 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 Turkey. The alliance contested the 2011 general election by fielding candidates from participating parties as independents in order to bypass the 10% election threshold needed to win seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The alliance won 5.67% of the vote,initially winning 36 MPs. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey later annulled the election of BDP MP Hatip Dicle in Diyarbakır,reducing the alliance's elected MPs to 35. The Bloc fielded 65 candidates in 41 provinces.
Tuncer Bakırhan is a Kurdish politician and current co-leader of the Kurdish minority interests party DEM Party. He is a former chairman of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) and the former Mayor of Siirt. He was dismissed from his duties as mayor by the Turkish ministry of the interior,arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Çağlar Demirel is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin and a former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
Hasip Kaplan a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin and former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for several parties,in 2015 he represented the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in the Turkish Parliament.
Parliamentary immunity in Turkey exists since the Turkish constitution was accepted in 1924. It is meant to grant immunity to the members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey before the judiciary and has been based on the parliamentary immunity which France has as well. Parliamentary immunity can be lifted if the parliaments majority votes so. The Constitutional Court was created in 1962,and has the authority to ban political parties and also ban people from holding a political office,and if those are members of parliament,then they are also not protected by the parliamentary immunity. The new constitution of 1982 also included a parliamentary immunity,but in the case an investigation under Art. 14 of the constitution has been initiated before the politicians election into parliament,the courts could be allowed to carry on with the proceedings.
After the switch to Turkey's multi-party era in 1945,several Kurdish ethnic parties have been established. The first Kurdish minority interests party came into the political arena in 1990 with the establishment of the People's Labour Party (HEP),which was banned by the court in 1993 for being a voice of separatism. Parties that advocate for Kurdish interests have since been ephemeral,often participating in one or two elections before being banned by the Constitutional Court,only to re-organize under another political party.