User:PanchoS/Turgut Öker
Turgut Öker | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Grand National Assembly for Mardin | |
| In office June – November 2015 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1963 Nusaybin, Turkey |
| Citizenship |  Turkey /  Germany |
| Political party | People's Democratic Party (HDP) |
| Alma mater | Ankara University |
Turgut Öker (born 1961) is a Turkish-German publicist and leading Alevi representative. He From 1999 until 2012 he was chairman of the Alevi Community Germany.
In the June 2015 general election he was elected a member of the Turkish parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), but lost his mandate in the subsequent snap election in November.
Alevi movement in Germany[edit]
In the early 1990s, Öker was employed at Hamburg's Alevi Culture Center (HAKM), one of the most active centers amongst the more secular and progressive, even leftist faction of Alevi organizations.[1] From spring 1992 on, he participated in the first meetings to discuss the possibility of a single national Alevi federation, together with the more religious faction that was already organized in the "Federation of Alevi Communities" (Alevi Birlikleri Federasyonu.[2] The talks however didn't immediately come to fruition.[3]
Following the July 1993 Sivas massacre, Öker committed himself to organizing a large public demonstration in Cologne. Instead of the expected 3,000 people, 60,000 came. The demonstration turned the events in Sivas into a watershed moment for German Alevis, as within a year, more than a hundred new Alevi associations were founded all over Germany.[3] The demonstration's success cleared the way for a single Alevi national federation, and made Öker a leading person within the federation.[4]
German Federation of Alevi Communities (Turkish: Almanya Alevi Birlikleri Federasyonu, AABF) In January 1999, Öker succeeded Ali Kılıç, who ran for a seat in the Turkish general election as chairman of the AABF, later renamed Alevi Community Germany.[5]
References[edit]
- ^ Sökefeld 2008, p. 81.
- ^ Sökefeld 2008, p. 82.
- ^ a b Sökefeld 2008, p. 83.
- ^ Sökefeld 2008, p. 84.
- ^ Sökefeld 2008, p. 86.
Bibliography[edit]
- Sökefeld, Martin (2008). Struggling for Recognition: The Alevi Movement in Germany and in Transnational Space. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-478-4.