Selahattin Demirtaş: The Kurdish Leader Who Ran for President From a Prison Cell
- Hojîn Rostam
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Who Is Selahattin Demirtaş?
Selahattin Demirtaş is a Kurdish-Zaza politician, lawyer, and author born on 10 April 1973 in Palu, Elazığ, Turkey. He served as co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish political party — from 2014 to 2018. He has been imprisoned since 4 November 2016 on politically controversial charges. Despite being held in a maximum-security prison, he ran as a presidential candidate in 2018 and has continued to write and publish books from his cell. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant Kurdish political figures of the 21st century and a symbol of resistance against the suppression of Kurdish political rights in Turkey.
Key Takeaways
Selahattin Demirtaş was born on 10 April 1973 in Palu, Elazığ, to a Zaza Kurdish family.
He is a qualified lawyer who worked as a human rights advocate in Diyarbakır before entering politics.
He co-led the HDP, transforming it into a broad left-wing party championing Kurdish rights, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and minority protections.
He has been imprisoned since November 2016 on terrorism-related charges widely condemned by human rights organisations and the European Court of Human Rights.
He ran as the HDP’s presidential candidate from prison in 2018, receiving 8.4% of the vote.
While imprisoned, he has written six books, becoming one of Turkey’s most prominent voices in opposition literature.
Quick Facts
Full Name: Selahattin Demirtaş Also Known As: Selahedîn Demirtaş (Kurdish spelling); nicknamed “Eser” by family Born: 10 April 1973 Place of Birth: Palu, Elazığ, Turkey Background: Zaza Kurdish Occupation: Politician, lawyer, author Era: 2000s–present Known For: HDP co-leader; presidential candidate from prison; human rights lawyer; author of six novels Key Works: Seher / Dawn (2017), Devran (2019), Leylan (2020), Efsun (2021), DAD (2023), Jamal (2025) Associated With: HDP, BDP, DTP; Kurdish political movement in Turkey Historical Importance: Most internationally recognised Kurdish political figure in Turkey; symbol of democratic resistance and Kurdish rights
Table of Contents
Early Life and Origins
Selahattin Demirtaş was born on 10 April 1973 in the town of Palu in Elazığ province, in the Kurdish heartland of southeastern Turkey. His family is of Zaza origin — the Zaza are a distinct ethnic and linguistic group within the broader Kurdish identity, speaking the Zazaki language. Demirtaş has described himself as “Kurdish Zaza,” embracing both identities.
He completed his primary and secondary education in Palu before attempting higher education in maritime commerce and management at Dokuz Eylül University in 1991. Political difficulties at university led him to leave without completing his degree. He returned to Diyarbakır and retook the university entrance exam in 1993, enrolling at Ankara University Law Faculty. After graduating he worked initially as a freelance lawyer.
In 2000, Demirtaş joined the executive committee of the Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD). When the IHD chair Osman Baydemir became mayor of Diyarbakır, Demirtaş succeeded him as chair in 2004. He focused on investigating unsolved political murders in southeastern Turkey — among the most dangerous areas of human rights advocacy in the region. He also co-founded the Diyarbakır branch of Amnesty International and was involved in establishing the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.
He is married to Başak Demirtaş and they have two daughters, Delal (born 2004) and Dılda (born 2007). His family nickname is “Eser.” His father Tahir Demirtaş died on 31 December 2023 aged 78; Demirtaş was only briefly allowed to visit him in hospital in November 2022, under escort, before being returned to Edirne Prison.
Historical Context
Demirtaş came of age during one of the most turbulent periods in modern Kurdish history. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the PKK and the Turkish state were engaged in a brutal armed conflict that killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Kurds in southeastern Turkey. Villages were burned, forced disappearances were common, and political activists faced serious danger. It was in this environment that Demirtaş became a human rights lawyer.
By the 2000s, the conflict had partially subsided and Kurdish political parties began operating within Turkey’s formal democratic structures. A succession of pro-Kurdish parties — HADEP, DEHAP, DTP, BDP — were closed by court order and reconstituted under new names. This cycle of suppression and renewal shaped the entire environment in which Demirtaş built his career.
The HDP, founded in 2012, was a deliberate attempt to break this cycle. Rather than positioning itself purely as a Kurdish nationalist party, it sought a broad left-wing coalition appealing to Turks, Armenians, Alevis, women, LGBTQ+ voters, and secularists as well as Kurds. Under Demirtaş’s leadership, the HDP crossed Turkey’s critical 10% electoral threshold in June 2015 with 13.1% of the vote — a historic result that deprived President Erdoğan’s AKP of its parliamentary majority.
The 2016 coup attempt against Erdoğan was followed by a sweeping crackdown on political opposition. Parliamentary immunity protections were stripped, and on 4 November 2016, Demirtaş and nine other HDP MPs were arrested. The political environment shifted dramatically: where he had been a nationally debated opposition leader, he became a prisoner whose case grew into an international cause.
Major Achievements, Ideas, and Contributions
Political Leadership and Electoral Impact
Demirtaş entered parliament in 2007 as a member of the Democratic Society Party (DTP). After its closure in 2009, he moved to the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), becoming co-chair in 2010. His most significant contribution was transforming the HDP between 2014 and 2018 into a genuinely national opposition party. He championed women’s inclusion in leadership, LGBTQ+ rights, and representation for Turkey’s ethnic and religious minorities. The party’s co-presidency model — requiring one male and one female co-leader — was itself a break with Turkish political norms.
In the 2014 presidential election, he received 9.77% of the vote, demonstrating that a Kurdish candidate could attract support well beyond the Kurdish electorate. His 2015 election result, which blocked the AKP from a parliamentary majority, was the high point of the HDP’s democratic ambitions under his leadership. Even from prison in 2018, he received 8.4% in the presidential race — a remarkable result for someone unable to campaign in any conventional sense.
Literary Works and Prison Writing
One of the most unexpected dimensions of Demirtaş’s public life is his emergence as a serious author from inside prison. His debut, Seher (published in Turkey in 2017, in English as Dawn in 2018), is a short story collection about ordinary Turkish and Kurdish people caught in extraordinary circumstances — factory workers, cleaning women, Syrian refugees, bombing victims. The book sold over 200,000 copies in Turkey alone and was praised internationally.
His subsequent works — Devran (2019), Leylan (2020), Efsun (2021), DAD (2023), and Jamal (2025) — continue exploring marginalised voices and themes of justice. DAD means “justice” in Kurdish. When a Turkish television network aired a promotional segment for DAD, media regulators fined the broadcaster on the grounds it “praised a terrorist” — a ruling later challenged in court.
Human Rights Advocacy
Before entering politics, Demirtaş spent years as a practising human rights lawyer, documenting extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and political violence in southeastern Turkey. His work at the Diyarbakır IHD gave him a grounding in human rights law that shaped both his political style and his international profile. As a parliamentarian, he consistently used legal and institutional channels to challenge state abuses and to push for Kurdish language rights in education and constitutional equality.
Timeline and Key Events
1973 — Born 10 April in Palu, Elazığ, Turkey. 1993 — Enrolled at Ankara University Law Faculty. 2000 — Joined the Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD). 2004 — Became chair of the Diyarbakır IHD. 2007 — First elected to the Turkish parliament as a DTP member. 2009 — DTP closed by court order; moved to BDP. 2010 — Elected BDP co-chair alongside Gültan Kışanak. 2012 — HDP founded; Demirtaş becomes co-chair. 2014 — Ran for president; received 9.77% of the vote. June 2015 — HDP received 13.1% in parliamentary elections; AKP lost its majority. November 2015 — Snap elections; HDP received 10.7%. 4 November 2016 — Arrested along with nine other HDP MPs; imprisoned in Edirne F-Type Prison. 2017 — First book, Seher (Dawn), published from prison. 2018 — Ran for president from prison; received 8.4%. ECHR ordered his release; Turkey refused. 2019 — Received the Progressive Alliance Award (Courage Award) in Sweden. 2020 — ECHR Grand Chamber again condemned Turkey and called for his release. 2021 — Sentenced to 3.5 years for insulting the president. Received the Weimar Human Rights Award in Germany. 2023 — Total sentence reached 42 years. Announced withdrawal from active politics. 31 December 2023 — His father Tahir Demirtaş died aged 78. 2025 — Reports of discussions in Turkey about his potential release. Sixth book, Jamal, announced.
Debates, Controversies, and Misconceptions
The Terrorism Charges
The Turkish government charged Demirtaş with terrorism-related offences — specifically that by supporting protests connected to the PKK’s conflict with ISIS in Kobane, and by making speeches in support of peace negotiations, he was propagandising for a terrorist organisation. The charges involve over 100 separate investigations and resulted in a total sentence of 42 years.
International legal opinion has taken a sharply different view. The ECHR ruled in 2018 and again in 2020 that his continued detention was politically motivated, timed specifically to remove him from politics during a constitutional referendum and presidential election. Turkey refused to comply with both rulings. Most Western governments and major human rights organisations consider him a political prisoner.
The HDP-PKK Relationship
The Turkish government consistently framed the HDP as a civilian front for the PKK. Demirtaş and HDP supporters argued the opposite: that the party was an independent democratic institution which acknowledged the PKK’s political reality while pursuing its own parliamentary path. Demirtaş consistently denied direct PKK membership and explicitly participated in AKP-initiated peace talks in 2013. Independent observers generally regard the terrorism framing as an overstatement designed to justify political repression, though the exact nature of HDP-PKK relations remains a subject of debate.
Zaza Identity and Kurdish Identity
Demirtaş is of Zaza Kurdish origin, which distinguishes him from Kurdish groups who speak Kurmanji or Sorani. Whether the Zaza are a subgroup within the Kurdish people or a separate ethnicity is an ongoing debate. Demirtaş has described himself as “Kurdish Zaza” and his political identity has always been within the Kurdish political movement. His background reflects the diversity of Kurdish identity in Turkey, where multiple linguistic communities share political solidarity without being ethnically identical.
Legacy and Cultural Impact
Selahattin Demirtaş occupies a unique position in Kurdish political history. He is not a military commander or a traditional revolutionary figure. His significance lies in his attempt to bring Kurdish political demands into Turkey’s democratic mainstream — to pursue Kurdish rights through parliament, constitutional law, and electoral coalitions that extended far beyond the Kurdish electorate.
His imprisonment since 2016 transformed him into an international symbol. He received the Progressive Alliance Award in Sweden in 2019 and the Weimar Human Rights Award in Germany in 2021, both recognising his defence of democratic values under persecution. Western media drew comparisons to figures who continued leading political movements from prison.
His literary output from prison gives him influence beyond politics. Writing in the tradition of authors who have produced serious literature under conditions of imprisonment, his books reach readers who would never follow Kurdish political news. They extend his presence into cultural spaces that his political role alone could not reach.
As of 2025, discussions of a potential political settlement in Turkey that could include his release are ongoing. Whether or not he is freed, his case has permanently shaped the international debate about Kurdish political rights and democratic freedoms in Turkey.
Related People, Places, and Topics
HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party)
PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party)
Abdullah Öcalan
Figen Yüksekdağ — HDP co-leader alongside Demirtaş
Diyarbakır (Amed) — the cultural and political capital of Turkish Kurds
Kurdish political parties in Turkey: DTP, BDP, HDP, DEM Party
European Court of Human Rights — Demirtaş v. Turkey cases
Leyla Güven — Kurdish politician and hunger striker
Kurdish rights in Turkey — history and political context
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Selahattin Demirtaş?
Selahattin Demirtaş is a Kurdish-Zaza politician, lawyer, and author from Turkey. He served as co-leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP party from 2014 to 2018, ran twice for president, and has been imprisoned since November 2016 on terrorism-related charges widely considered politically motivated.
What is Selahattin Demirtaş best known for?
He is best known for leading the HDP to historic electoral success in 2015, running his presidential campaign from a prison cell in 2018, and writing six novels while imprisoned. He also transformed the HDP into a multi-ethnic progressive party championing women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and minority protections.
Why is Selahattin Demirtaş in prison?
The Turkish government imprisoned him on terrorism-related charges, including allegations that his speeches constituted terrorist propaganda. He has been sentenced to a total of 42 years. The European Court of Human Rights ruled twice that his detention was politically motivated and demanded his release. Turkey refused to comply both times. Most human rights organisations consider him a political prisoner.
Is Selahattin Demirtaş Kurdish?
Yes. He is of Zaza Kurdish origin and describes himself as “Kurdish Zaza.” The Zaza are a distinct linguistic and ethnic group broadly considered part of the Kurdish people, though the precise relationship between Zaza and Kurdish identity is itself debated. His entire political career has been dedicated to Kurdish political rights in Turkey.
What books has Selahattin Demirtaş written?
He has written six works from prison: Seher / Dawn (2017), Devran (2019), Leylan (2020), Efsun (2021), DAD (2023), and Jamal (2025). He also co-authored Arafta Düet (Duet in Limbo) with Yiğit Bener. Dawn has been translated into English and published internationally.
References and Further Reading
Selahattin Demirtaş, Dawn (Seher), translated by Amy Marie Spangler and Kate Ferguson. SJP for Hogarth, 2018.