Ziya Pir

Ziya Pir (born 1970 in Torul, Gümüşhane Province, Turkey) is a Turkish and German entrepreneur and politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Ziya Pir

MP
Member of the Grand National Assembly
Assumed office
7 June 2015
ConstituencyDiyarbakır
Personal details
Born1970
Torul, Gümüşhane Province, Turkey
Political partyPeople's Democratic Party (HDP)

Born in Turkey, Pir mostly grew up in Western Germany. Affiliated with the German liberal-conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, in 1999, Pir joined the CDU German-Turkish Forum. In 2002, he was tasked by Turkish prime minister Erdoğan with developing an organization for Turkish expatriates in Germany, the Union of European-Turkish Democrats (UETD). Appalled by both the UETD's increasing alignment with the AKP party and Erdoğans increasingly authoritarian conduct, he later broke with both.[1]

Pir, who is a nephew of the famous ethnic Turkish co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Kemal Pir, in 2015 decided to return to Turkey in order to join the newly founded pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP. In the June 2015 general election he was elected to represent his Diyarbakır constituency in the Turkish parliament[2] and was later confirmed in the November 2015 snap election.[3] In November 2016 he was arrested together with 10 other parliamentarians of the HDP party.[4] In 2017 he received a suspended sentence of 11 months and 20 days for calling the prosecutor who ordered raids on the Dicle Haber Ajansi, Azadiya Welat, KURDÎ-DER and Aram Publishing in Diyarbakır province on 28 September 2015, during which 32 journalists got detained a “candidate as a palace jester".[5]

References
  1. Sinan Sat (10 June 2015). "Ein Duisburger zieht ins türkische Parlament ein". Der Westen (in German).
  2. Dimitri Bettoni (6 July 2015). "Ziya Pir, a vision on Turkey". Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso - Transeuropa.
  3. "Minority MPs preserve seats in Nov 1 election". Hürriyet Daily News. 2 November 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  4. Deniz Yücel (4 November 2016). ""Sie sind ein Bandit und Ihr Staatsanwalt auch!"". Die Welt (in German).
  5. SCF (1 November 2017). "Turkish court sentences pro-Kurdish deputy Pir for 11-month prison over alleged insult". Stockholm Center for Freedom. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
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