Pervin Buldan
| Pervin Buldan MP | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly | |
|
Assumed office 23 November 2015 | |
| Speaker | İsmail Kahraman |
| Serving with |
Ahmet Aydın Ayşe Nur Bahçekapılı Akif Hamzaçebi |
| Preceded by | Yurdusev Özsökmenler |
| Member of the Grand National Assembly | |
|
Assumed office 22 July 2007 | |
| Constituency |
Iğdır (2007, 2011) İstanbul (III) (June 2015, Nov 2015) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
6 November 1967 Hakkâri Province, Turkey |
| Political party | Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) |
| Other political affiliations |
Democratic Society Party (2007-09) Peace and Democracy Party (2009-14) Independent (during 2007 and 2011 elections) |
Pervin Buldan (6 November 1967) is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin. She was a member of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Iğdır, Eastern Turkey. She is President of Yakay-Der. She is one of the deputy speakers in the 26th Parliament of Turkey.
Biography
She was born in Hakkâri Province in 1967, and she grew up and went to school there.[1] She graduated from high school[1] and started work as an official in the local government administration department. At the age of 19, she married her cousin Savaş Buldan. The couple moved to Istanbul in 1990, where Pervin Buldan was a full-time housewife. One year later, Pervin’s first child, Necirvan, was born. There, Savaş Buldan became a businessman, and he was claimed to be a drug dealer and PKK financier by the National Intelligence Organization of the Turkish government.[2][3]
In 1993, their life changed when Prime Minister Tansu Çiller made a speech declaring that the government had a list of businessmen supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) whom they would hold accountable.[1] After that speech, Savas received a series of threatening telephone calls. The period of “killings by unidentified murderers” against businessmen, including Savaş Buldan, began. On 3 June 1994, Pervin’s husband Savaş and his two friends, Adnan Yıldırım and Hacı Karay were abducted by eight policemen after leaving the Hotel Çınar in Yesilköy.[1] The next day their bodies were found in Bolu, at the edge of the river Melen. They carried scars of heavy torture and had been shot in the head. Pervin Buldan gave birth to her daughter, Zelal on the same day, 4 June.[4]
In 2001 she founded Yakay-Der, the Association of Solidarity and Assistance for the Families of Missing Persons, to help the families of missing persons in Turkey, of which she is now president. Before this she worked for Mag-Der, an association with similar objectives which was closed down by the Turkish authorities because of alleged irregularities with respect to the Turkish Law of Associations.[5]
Yakay-Der grew out of the experience of the ‘Saturday Mothers’, who used civil disobedience to gain publicity and bring attention to the ‘disappearances in custody’ cases. These cases became known to the public in Turkey as well as to the world at large. Buldan has described how every week they would hold sit-down demonstrations at Galatasaray Place to ‘ask for the people that have disappeared’, to the state to talk about the ‘reality of the disappeared.[6]
In July 2007, Buldan stood as an independent candidate in the Turkish parliamentary elections and entered the Turkish Parliament. She is an MP for Iğdır. She was re-elected for a second term in the 12 June 2011 general election. In 2008 an investigation was opened against her for a speech that she made during the Newroz celebrations in Iğdır.[7] In April 2010 she headed a group of MPs who demanded an investigation into the Armenian nuclear power plant at Metsamor, near the Turkish border.[8] In 2013 she paid several visits to Ocalan on Imrali Island as deputy chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).[9]
References
- 1 2 3 4 Sibel Hurtas (10 March 2015). "From housewife to Kurdish peace negotiator". Al Monitor. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
- ↑ Report on the Susurluk scandal
- ↑ Kutlu Savaş devlet sırlarını ele verdi Retrieved 21 March 2015.
- ↑ "Pervin Buldan - Turkey". World People's Blog. 29 January 2008. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
- ↑ "La Fondation du Yakar-Der". ICAD. December 2005. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ↑ "International Conference on Turkey, the Kurds and the EU" (PDF). EU Turkey Civil Commission. 22 November 2004. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
- ↑ "Turkey: DTP deputy Pervin Buldan faces investigation". Kurd Net. 25 March 2008. Retrieved 1 January 2010.
- ↑ "Turkish MPs Raising Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant Issue". Armenians Net. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- ↑ "BDP's visit to Öcalan takes place without Demirtaş". Hurriyet Daily News. 10 October 2013. Retrieved 25 November 2013.