Gültan KIŞANAK

Gültan Kışanak

She was born on 15 June 1961 in Elazığ. She spent her childhood and adolescence years in Elazığ, a city in the Southeast Turkey. She became interested in politics during her high school years. After she graduated from Elazığ Teacher’s Education School, she started studying at Department of Turkish at Dicle University, Faculty of Education, in 1978.  She was arrested during the 12 September military coup, while she was a second grader, at the age of 19.  She was in jail for two years between 1980 and 1982, in Diyarbakır Prison. After two years of imprisonment, she graduated from Ege University Communication Faculty in Journalism and Public Relations.

Kışanak worked as editor in chief and editorial coordinator for Yeni Ülke, Özgür Gündem and Özgür Ülke newspapers as a journalist, after, after her internship that she started at Güneş newspaper in 1991.  She founded the Toplumsal Direniş (Social Resistance) newspaper with a group of her friends, in the beginning of 1990s; but the newspaper did not last long. She was involved in the women’s movement as of 1997; she returned to Diyarbakır and worked actively in various associations as a journalist who advocates women’s rights. She worked as Social Project Consultant for the Bağlar Municipality in Diyarbakır, as of 2003.

She was elected Diyarbakır MP in 2007, through an independent candidacy, supported by Democratic Society Party (DTP). She was acknowledged for her discourse on the solution of the Kurdish Question. When DTP was closed down in 2009, she became a member of the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi/Peace and Democracy Party). She was elected co-president of the party along with Selahattin Demirtaş. She was elected independent Siirt MP in the General Elections in Turkey on 12 June 2011, supported by BDP.

She was elected as the Mayor of Diyarbakır from BDP, in the 2014 local elections. She is married with one child.