10 Facts About Hatip Dicle

Hatip Dicle was a member of the Democracy Party, then of the Peace and Democracy Party.

Hatip Dicle attended the Ziya Gokalp high school in Diyarbakir and enrolled into the civil engineering department of the Istanbul Technical University from which he graduated in 1979.

Hatip Dicle began his political activity in the 1970s, involving himself in the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths and joining the People's Labor Party.

On 12 December 1993, Dicle was elected party chairman, which he stayed until March 1994.

On 9 June 2004, the 3 prisoners were released after a retrial and pressure from the European Union, but Hatip Dicle was still banned from political activity.

Hatip Dicle was sentenced to 20 months in prison for a statement that he made to the ANKA agency in 2007 about the Kurdish question.

Hatip Dicle was one of the first Co-Chairs of the Democratic Society Congress after its foundation in 2007.

Hatip Dicle was replaced in the Turkish Parliament by a member of the AK Party, Oya Eronat, who had come sixth in the election, with a much smaller vote.

Hatip Dicle called for Articles 7 and 76 of the Turkish Constitution to be amended to prevent such situations arising in future.

Hatip Dicle's case was taken up by British MPs who lodged an early day motion in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.