Nejdet Atalay

Nejdet Atalay (born 1978 ) is a former politician of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) and Mayor of Batman. He has been a supporter of Kurdish cultural and language rights and made the first legal defense in the Kurdish language in a Turkish court in 2013.

Early life and education He was born to a Kurdish family in 1978 in a village in Kozluk, Batman and graduated from the Dicle University where he studied Mechanical engineering. He is married and is the father of two children. As the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the DTP, he aimed for similar rights for the Kurds which the Scots, the Catalans or Basques have which are an official recognition as a people, a regional government and parliament. After he attended a funeral of militants of the PKK which is an illegal organization in Turkey, he was arrested in April 2006. He defended himself that he attended the funeral in order to calm the crowd.

Mayor of Batman During his electoral campaign towards the Mayorship of Batman he criticized the use of the Kurdish language by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In the municipal elections of March 2009 he was elected with 60%. On 24 December 2009, he was arrested and accused with terror related charges.

Imprisonment During his imprisonment he demanded to make his defense in the Kurdish language, also becoming the first ever to give a testimony in the Kurdish language in January 2013. In the case against members of alleged members of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), he was the first to have been permitted to give a testimony in the Kurdish language in January 2013. There he also gave he testimony in the Kurdish language, but the court wrote that he spoke in a language it "believes" to be the Kurdish language.

Later he went into exile.