Selahattin Demirtaş

Profile Overview

Selahattin Demirtaş (born 10 April 1973) is a Kurdish politician, lawyer and author. He was the co-leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside Figen Yüksekdağ from 2014 to 2018. Selahattin Demirtaş announced that he left politics after the May 2023 elections.
Demirtaş was the presidential candidate of the HDP in the 2014 presidential election, coming in third place. He led the HDP to gather 13.1% at the June 2015 parliament elections and 10.7% in the snap elections in November 2015, coming 4th in each election. He has been imprisoned since 4 November 2016 and despite his imprisonment the HDP fielded Demirtaş as its candidate for the 2018 presidential election, running his campaign from prison.
In a judgement given in December 2020, the European Court of Human Rights judged that, given "the timing of Demirtaş continued detention (coinciding with an important constitutional referendum and the presidential election)" and Turkey's "systemic trend of “gagging” dissenting voices", Demirtaş's continued pre-trial detention's political purpose had been predominant". Demirtaş has been imprisoned in Edirne F-type prison since 4 November 2016.