Talk:List of participants of the Gaza flotilla/İbrahim Bilgen

This is a snapshot of İbrahim Bilgen article (nominated for deletion) to indicate his notability for listing as notable participant in the Gaza flotilla raid

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İbrahim Bilgen (2 March 1949 – 31 May 2010) was a Turkish politician, engineer and activist. He died during the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid.

Bilgen's family migrated to Turkey from Mosul, Iraq. Born in Batman, Turkey he was a graduate of Fırat University electrical engineering department, a member of the Chamber of Electrical Engineers of Turkey and held a doctorate in psychoanalysis. He had been a resident of Siirt, a south-eastern city of Turkey, since 1980. He was married and had six children.

Political career
Bilgen was one of the founders of Virtue Party. After the Virtue Party was banned by the Constitutional Court of Turkey in 2001, he joined the newly formed Felicity Party. He was a candidate for Member of Turkish Parliament in 2007 for that party, but he was not elected receiving 0.96% of votes. In Turkish local elections, 2009, he was a candidate for mayor of Siirt, but he was again not elected. In a press interview during his 2009 campaign, he said: "I was born a Felicity man, I will die a Felicity man. Because Felicity is the only national party of Turkey. This party has neither come under the yoke of America, nor of any other country." Since then, he had been serving as a city investigator for the Felicity Party.

Business career
After working as an electrical engineer in various companies, İbrahim Bilgen founded Bilgen Mühendislik, an electrical engineering company, in 2004. In addition, he founded the local television channel SELAM TV, the first television channel to be founded in Siirt.

Death
As a volunteer for IHH in Siirt, Bilgen joined the Gaza flotilla of May 2010 on board the MV Mavi Marmara, which set sail from Istanbul for the Gaza strip on May 23, 2010. He died on May 31, 2010, during the Gaza flotilla raid.

Reactions to his death

 * Afif Demirkıran, Member of Parliament for the AK Party from Siirt, said: "May Allah accept the martyrdom of İbrahim Bilgen."
 * A press statement by the Chamber of Electrical Engineers of Turkey stated: "We condemn the attack of Israel in which one of our members was killed."