Portal:Kurdistan/Selected biography/Thursday

Leyla Zana (born May 3, 1961) is a Kurdish female politician, who was imprisoned for 10 years for her political actions which were claimed to be against the unity of Turkey. When she was a member of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, she was banned from joining any political party for five years with the Constitutional Court's decision to ban this party. She has been elected as an independent member of parliament for Diyarbakır by the support of Peace and Democracy Party. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 and in 1998 and was awarded the 1995 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, but was unable to collect it until her release in 2004 read more