Dilek Öcalan (born 3 October 1987) is a Kurdish politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who served as a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

for the electoral district of

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ext ...

, Turkey, from 2015 to 2018. She is the niece of

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from ...

, the imprisoned leader of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sou ...

(PKK) militant organisation that has been in conflict with the

Turkish Armed Forces The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; tr, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK) are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. Turkish Armed Forces consist of the General Staff, the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Forces. The current Ch ...

since the 1980s, making both her candidacy and election to the Grand National Assembly controversial.

Early life

Öcalan was born on 3 October 1987 in Halfeti, Sanlıurfa, as daughter of Fatma Öcalan, the sister of imprisoned PKK leader

. She has a tourism degree from university. On 23 December 2013, she visited her uncle at

İmralı prison İmralı prison is an F-Type high security prison on the island of İmralı in the Sea of Marmara in Turkey. It is currently used as a prison for a few prisoners from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and one prisoner of the Communist Party o ...

and became known to the media after she gave a press statement detailing the conversation between them. Öcalan has been imprisoned since 1999, serving a sentence of aggravated life imprisonment under charges of founding and leading a terrorist organization (namely the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organisation by

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Political career

Öcalan first entered politics in 2012, a year before meeting her uncle on the Island of İmralı. During the third congress of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), she was elected to the party executive while the party changed its name to

Democratic Regions Party The Democratic Regions Party ( tr, Demokratik Bölgeler Partisi, DBP, ku, Partiya Herêman a Demokratîk, PHD) is a Kurdish political party in the Republic of Turkey. The pro-minority rights Minority rights are the normal individual rights ...

(DBP) and adopted a fraternal relationship with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Member of Parliament

Öcalan's candidacy to become a

despite being the niece of Abdullah Öcalan was heavily controversial, drawing strong opposition from Turkish nationalists. Her candidacy also allegedly caused a split within the Öcalan family. Nevertheless, she was put forward as a HDP candidate for the electoral district of

, being fielded as the second candidate on the HDP's provincial party list. She was subsequently elected in the June 2015 general election to become one of the youngest MPs in the new Parliament, resulting in her being appointed to the temporary Speaker's Council until a new Council could be elected in July. In the snap elections in

November 2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the A ...

Öcalan was reelected as an MP.

Prosecution

After on 1 February 2017 and arrest warrant was issued for Öcalan she was detained on 7 February and released to the same day. After she left Turkey and went into exile. On 1 March 2018 she was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for spreading terror propaganda during a speech she held at a funeral.

References

External links