Akın Birdal

Akın Birdal ( * 1948 in the province of Nigde, Turkey), is a former agricultural engineer and human rights in Turkey. Birdal was between 2007 and 2011 deputy of Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi in Turkish parliament. He is co-founder of the Turkish human rights organization İnsan Haklari Derneği.

Career

After visiting the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Ankara in 1970, he was first employed as a landscape gardener. In 1973 he completed a course of study as PhD in the Department of Management.

By 1977 he was in senior positions in the Union of Agricultural Engineers worked well in the agricultural engineer chamber. From 1977 he strengthened his activities for village development in his native province. In 1979 he was appointed university lecturer, but then had to give up already his position again, since he was convicted for his work in the village cooperatives to one year in prison after the military coup in 1980.

In 1986, with the largest Birdal today Human Rights Association in Turkey İnsan Haklari Derneği, its general secretary, he was first, from 1992, then President. In this capacity, he also strove to improve the situation of Kurdish citizens in Turkey.

In 1995, involved in the human rights activist at the development of the Turkish Özgürlük ve Dayanisma Partisi ( Party for Freedom and Solidarity), but missed a place in the Turkish parliament. On 12 May 1998 Birdal was seriously injured in an assassination attempt with nationalistic background. A speech of 1996 he made his then of "separatist propaganda " 14 months in prison a.

In the new millennium Birdal tried - he had now given the IHD Chairman - to participate in an organized association of left-wing Turks and Kurds.

In the elections in Turkey in 2007 the ethnic Turk ran as an independent candidate in the Kurdish- populated metropolis of Diyarbakir and was elected. Then Birdal joined the Demokratik Partisi Toplum. After the banning of the DTP on 11 December 2009, he joined the Barış ve at Demokrasi Partisi. For the general elections in June 2011, he stood on as an independent candidate for Gaziantep, but did not get enough votes to feed back into Parliament.

Akın Birdal was also the author of several books:

• Sol Elim - Ulucanlardan Notlar, publishing Belge, 2002
• Betula: Öyküler, publishing Aykırı, 2004
• Cansuyu: Deneme ve köşe yazıları, publishing Belge, 2003 and Publisher Aykırı, 2006

International Awards

• Amnesty International Human Rights Award