Selma Irmak (born 8 March 1971,

Kızıltepe Kızıltepe ( ku, Qoser, ota, Tell-Ermen, lit=Armenian hill ) is a town and district in Mardin Province of Turkey. As of 2021, the district had a population of 263,938, making it the most populous district in the province. Government In the ...

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 ...

), is a Kurdish politician from Turkey and former MP for the

Peace and Democracy Party The Peace and Democracy Party ( tr, Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, ku, Partiya Aştî û Demokrasiyê, BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014. Development BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2 ...

(BDP) and People`s Democratic Party (HDP).

Personal life

The Turkish Parliament biographical file of Irmak is brief, listing her as a high-school graduate and single person. It was while she was studying to be a teacher at the

Selçuk University Selçuk University ( tr, Selçuk Üniversitesi) is a state-owned higher educational institution which was founded 1975 in Konya, Turkey. It is one of the largest universities in Turkey with a student body of 63,000 of which 2,200 are foreign stu ...

Konya Konya () is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium (), although the Seljuks also called it D ...

, when she was arrested for the first time.

Political career and legal prosecution

In the 1990s, she spent almost ten years in prison on charges of membership 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). She was for several years a co-chair of the

Democratic Society Party The Democratic Society Party ( tr, Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP, Kurdish: ''Partiya Civaka Demokratîk'', PCD) was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the Soci ...

(DTP). In October 2008, she was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for praising crimes and criminals. The court sentence was later commuted to a fine of 5,000 Turkish lira. She stood for mayor for Derik in the 29 March 2009 local elections. On 18 April 2009, while still co-chair of the DTP, she was again arrested in a police operation in Mardin, and detained in Diyarbakır E Type Prison on charges of membership of a terrorist organization. DTP members were targeted with large-scale arrests in April 2009. She was being tried alongside 175 other Kurdish politicians and political activists in the so-called mass 'KCK trial', which began in October 2010. In 2011 she was elected as a member of Parliament representing the Sırnak province, but due to her arrest she could not be sworn in. The court ruled that the

parliamentary immunity Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which politicians such as president, vice president, governor, lieutenant governor, member of parliament, member of legislative assembly, member of legislative council, ...

, which usually all Turkish Member of Parliaments have, does not apply in her case. Politicians from the Labour, Democracy and Freedom Block and other organizations protested against this ruling. In February 2012, she went on hunger strike along with many other fellow detainees and released a statement in support for

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 ...

. She was freed on 4 January 2014, by decision of the Diyarbakir High Criminal Court. Her release came shortly after a landmark decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court in the case of Mustafa Balbay After her release she took her oath in the Turkish parliament on 7 January 2014 and became co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which she stayed until 2016. In the Parliamentary Elections in June and the Parliamentary Elections in November 2015 she was elected as an MP representing

Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: *Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq *Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey *Hakkâri Province, a province in southeast Turkey *Hakkari (el ...

for the party HDP. On the 4 November 2016 she was arrested upon terrorist charges. While the prosecution demanded more than 52 years imprisonment the court sentenced her in November 2017 to 10 years in prison for leading the PKK and being a member of a terrorist organization and disseminating terrorist propaganda. In March 2018 the sentence was upheld by a court in Gaziantep, and in the same year in April she was dismissed from Parliament. On the 15 January 2019 she declared she will join

Leyla Güven Leyla Güven (born 6 May 1964, Cihanbeyli, Konya, Turkey) is HDP MP for Hakkari, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) and former mayor of the municipality of Viranşehir in the Şanlıurfa Province of Southeast Anatolia of Turkey, wh ...

in her hunger strike demanding better detention conditions for Abdullah Öcalan. The State Prosecutor at 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 th ...

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 Univers ...

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 ...

on the 17 March 2021, asking for Irmak and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban to engage in political activities. Şahin filed the lawsuit jointly with a request for the HDP to be shut down arguing that there is no difference between the PKK and the HDP.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irmak, Selma Living people 1971 births Turkish Kurdish politicians Turkish Kurdish women Democratic Society Party politicians Turkish prisoners and detainees Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 24th Parliament of Turkey Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey) politicians 21st-century Turkish women politicians Politicians arrested in Turkey People expelled from public office People barred from public office 21st-century Kurdish women politicians