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From a jailed journalist to former Premier League footballer: New faces in Turkish Parliament
From a jailed journalist to former Premier League footballer: New faces in Turkish Parliament
A number of new MPs, who are well-known in Turkey and abroad, were elected to parliament in Turkey’s June 24 election. Click through for the story in photos...
Former Turkey international footballer Alpay Özalan, who notoriously taunted David Beckham in a Euro 2004 qualifier, is one of several personalities from outside politics who entered parliament from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) list in the western province of İzmir. Özalan had played as a defender in the Premier League at Aston Villa from 2000 to 2004.
Former motorcycle champion Kenan Sofuoğlu is another sports celebrity who entered parliament as an AKP MP, from the northwestern province of Sakarya. Sofuoğlu is a five-time Supersport World Championship winner who retired from the sport earlier this year.
Enis Berberoğlu, a former journalist who was sentenced on Feb. 13 to five years and 10 months in prison for leaking classified material to a newspaper, is expected to be released in the coming days as he has been re-elected as an MP from the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Istanbul list. Berberoğlu was jailed after the lifting of parliamentary immunities in 2016.
Prominent journalist Ahmet Şık, who has been imprisoned several times, has been elected from the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) list in Istanbul. Şık, along with other journalists from daily Cumhuriyet, was convicted on April 25 by a Turkish court and sentenced to a seven-and-half year sentence for helping outlawed “terrorist” organizations.
Theater actor Barış Atay will also enter parliament from the HDP list, as an MP from the southern province of Hatay. Atay was detained by police officers early on May 16 after posting a tweet criticizing Yusuf Yerkel, an advisor at the Prime Minister’s Office who made headlines in 2014 after being photographed kicking a protester on the ground during protests after a deadly coal mine disaster in Soma.
Constitutional law professor İbrahim Kaboğlu, who was dismissed from his post at Marmara University due to the state of emergency decree, has been elected to parliament from the CHP’s Istanbul list.
Selami Altınok, who previously served as Interior Minister and then as a police chief, has been elected to the parliament from the AKP’s list in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum.
University student Rümeysa Kadak, elected from the AKP list in Istanbul, has become Turkey’s youngest MP at the age of 22.
Meanwhile, the 79-year-old Deniz Baykal, the former leader of CHP, has become the oldest MP, elected from the CHP’s list in the southern province of Antalya. Baykal is currently recovering following a stroke in Ankara last year after a blood clot in a major artery going to his brain.
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