Ferhat Encü

Ferhat Encü (born 5 August 1985) is a Kurdish politician and former member of the Turkish Parliament in the Şırnak Province. Encü is well known for a speech that he gave on the floor of the Parliament in Ankara. In his speech, Encü criticized the Turkish government for their alleged violence and mistreatment of the Kurds. After delivering the speech, Encü was arrested and stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

Early life Encü was born on August 5, 1985, in the village of Gülyazı in Uludere district of the Şırnak Province in Turkey. He attended and graduated from high school in Turkey and speaks Kurdish at a very high level. In 2009, Encü began to study at the Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey, but took a break from education in order to focus on speaking for the victims of the Roboski massacre after 2011. During the Roboski massacre, he lost 11 relatives. After, Encü began pursuing a political career in Turkey and on 7 June 2015, he was elected MP for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). He was re-elected in the snap elections of 1 November 2015.

Political career and prosecution In the years following the Roboski Airstrike, Ferhat Encü has been actively fighting for justice for the village of Roboski. Initially, Encü served as the official spokesperson for Roboski with the assistance of his younger brother Veli Encü, but Ferhat eventually pursued a career in Turkish government as a lawmaker so that he would be able to launch a legitimate official inquiry into the Roboski Massacre. Another report stated that punching and slapping was occurring as deputies reacted to the words of Encü. After his speech in Ankara, Encü was arrested and held in a pre-trial detention center until November, when Encü was officially convicted of alienating the public from military service, terrorist propaganda, incitement to animosity, entering military prohibited zones, attempted murder of a public official for their duty.

Release In a separate trial that concluded in 2018, Encü was sentenced to 10 months in prison for insulting the government. He was released in June, 2019, after completing his sentence.

The State Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation in Turkey Bekir Şahin filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court on the 17 March 2021, demanding for Encü and 686 other HDP politicians a five-year ban to engage in politics. The lawsuit was filed together with the request for a closure of the HDP due to the parties alleged organizational links with the PKK.