Abdullah Demirbaş

Who is Abdullah Demirbaş?

Abdullah Demirbaş is mayor of the municipality of Sur in the city of Diyarbakir, Southeast Turkey, of the Peace and Democracy Party.

After graduating in sociology at Firat University in Elazig, Abdullah Demirbas worked as a philosophy teacher from 1987 to 2007, contributing to setting up the Mardin Branch of the Turkish Union of Teachers.

When he was elected as Mayor of Sur in 2004, he made a commitment to his electorate to serve them in their own languages. In 2007 he was removed from his functions, together with the entire municipal council, for using the Kurdish language in official business. He was accused of the misuse of municipal resources, having printed a children’s book and tourist brochures in Kurdish. The Congress of the Council of Europe took up his case in its 2007 report and Recommendation 229 on Local Democracy in Turkey.

In the local elections of March 2009, he was re-elected with a stronger majority. However, the prosecutions against him continued and in May 2009 he was sentenced to 2 years in jail for language crimes.

He is a campaigner for minority languages and has called on Turkey to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.