İbrahim Ayhan

Born in Siverek, Şanlıurfa, he graduated from the Yüzüncü Yıl University in Van in 1992.[1] After he worked as a teacher. From 1997 to 2007, he was an executive and chairperson of the Education and Science Workers' Union in Urfa.[1] He was married with two children.[2]

On 5 October 2010, he was arrested as part of an investigation into the Kurdish confederalist Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) organisation.[3] After he became an independent candidate and was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Sanliurfa in the general elections of 2011.[4] A court in Diyarbakır refused to release several elected independent MPs, as was also Ayhan.[5] He appealed to the Constitutional Court, claiming that the legally allowed detention time had been exceeded and his right to stand in elections had been violated.[6] He was released alongside the imprisoned MP Gülser Yıldırım on 3 January 2014, enabling them to take the oath.[7] On 28 August 2014, he joined the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) parliamentary caucus along with all other BDP MPs. He was re-elected in the general elections of June[8] and November 2015.[9] In February 2018 he was dismissed as Member of Parliament for having shown solidarity with a killed fighter from the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG).[10] He was sentenced to 1 year and 3 months imprisonment for sharing a photograph a fighter killed in Syrian Kurdistan, which was interpreted as terror propaganda.[1] On the 20 September 2018 Ayhan died due to a heart attack he suffered in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.[3]