Çağlar Demirel

Çağlar Demirel was born the Kulp in the Diyarbakır province. She enrolled into the Dicle University where she studied nursing[3] and graduated in 1995.[2] Following, she was an adviser on health care for several women and governmental institutions in Turkey[2] and was involved in a variety of NGO's focusing on women's rights.[4]

She was elected as the Mayor of Derik, Mardin in the municipal elections of 2009 for the Democratic Society Party (DTP).[5] After DTP was banned in December 2009[6] she joined Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).[7] She was detained together with more than 100 other politicians of the BDP in October 2011 due to an investigation into the activities of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).[8] While in prison, she joined a hunger strike in protest of the detention conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, the detained leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[9] She was elected to the Turkish parliament in the general elections of June 2015[10] and re-elected In the snap elections of November 2015, both times representing the HDP for Diarbakir.[11] Following, she became the vice-chair of the HDP parliamentarian group.[12] As such, she supported the peace process between the Turkish Government and the PKK.[13]

On the 14 December 2016 Bianet reported that Demirel was arrested and prosecuted for membership in propagandizing for a terrorist organization.[14] In July 2017, she was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months imprisonment for being a member of a terrorist organization.[15] On the 17 March 2021, the State Prosecutor before the Court of Cassation Bekir Şahin filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court demanding for Demirel and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban to engage in politics together with a closure of the HDP due to their alleged organizational links with the PKK.[16][4] In September 2021, the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial and Demirel was released.[3]