Human Rights Association

Turkey is going through its worst period in terms of rights abuses since the foundation of the Human Rights Association (İHD), according to İHD head Öztürk Türkdoğan. 

Türkdoğan said İHD's annual report listed the highest number of human rights violations since its establishment on July 17, 1986. 

Selahattin Demirta?, the co-leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HDP), was born on April 10, 1973 in Palu, Elazig.

He graduated from Law School at Ankara University.

Some 1,539 people, including 112 children, were injured by Turkey's security forces at protests in 2014, while 11,262 people were detained, including 241 refugees, a recent report has revealed.

Forty-nine children have been subjected to torture in Turkish prisons in 2014, while another 64 have been tortured in police custody, a leading Turkish human rights NGO stated in a report released to mark World Children’s Day on Nov. 20.

Not more than five years ago, Selahattin Demirtaş was only a name familiar among human rights circles in Turkey. As a young lawyer, he assumed leadership of Turkey’s Human Rights Association’s (İHD) Diyarbakır branch in 2006. Then, after joining the Kurdish problem-focused Peace and Democracy Party (PKK), Demirtaş was elected as its co-chairman in 2010.