Hüseyin Kalkan

Who is Hüseyin Kalkan?

Hüseyin Kalkan was mayor of Batman in Southeast Anatolia, Turkey, and a member of the Democratic Society Party. He gained international notoriety November 2008 after he announced plans to sue Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight film, over the allegedly unauthorized use of his city's name.

In August 2007, British newspaper The Guardian, as an aside in the last of a 25 paragraph story concerning honor suicide in the region, claimed that Kalkan had been awarded damages by DC Comics for using his city's name in their Batman Comic book franchise. However, the 2008 news coverage reporting on the Nolan lawsuit made no mention of this claim. In fact, news sources made a point of noting that Kalkan was not suing D.C. Comics nor had he raised concerns about infringement before the Nolan lawsuit.

In February 2008 the mayor was sentenced to 10 months in jail for promoting terrorism.