Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş

Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş (born 7 November 1982) is a Turkish-Belgian politician, diplomat and was Turkey's Ambassador to Algeria between 2020 and 2023 and currently Minister of Family and Social Services since 2023. She is the youngest and first female member of parliament to wear the hijab. She was expelled from the Belgian Humanist Democratic Centre party (cdH) for denying the Armenian genocide in 2015.

Biography She can speak French, Dutch, English, Turkish Turkish and Spanish. At first she wanted to study law, but as she reckoned that she wouldn't be able to litigate in court while wearing a hijab, she changed her mind. She holds a degree in political science with a focus on public administration from the Université libre de Bruxelles. She is also an active member of many NGOs in Schaerbeek and the founder of a student organization. In 2006, she was elected as municipal councilor in the municipality of Schaerbeek. She was the first woman to wear the headscarf in a Belgian parliamentary assembly. In July 2018, she announced she wouldn't run in the local elections in October 2018.

Political positions Armenian Genocide denial Ozdemir was expelled from her party, the Humanist Democratic Centre on 29 May 2015 because she denied the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire was a genocide. She also didn't attend a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide in parliament, defending herself that there were no court rulings that undermined the Armenian claims. In protest of this decision, two other members of the cdH, one of them the brother of Mahinur, also left the party, alleging the party underwent a shift to the right. Ozdemir immediately received support from the Justice and Development (AKP) Party office in Brussels. There also was a demonstration in support of Ozdemir by the AKP-affiliated , beginning at the headquarters of her former party and ending at the Turkish embassy.