Halkin Emek Partisi

(HEP)

   In the fall of 1989, a number of parliamentary members of Erdal Inonu's Sosyal Demokrat Halkci Partisi (SHP), or Social Democratic Peoples Party, in Turkey who were of Kurdish ancestry were expelled for attending a conference on "Kurdish National Identity and Human Rights" in Paris. These former SHP members were the seeds of HEP, or the Peoples Labor Party, which was created in June 1990 as the first legal Kurdish party with eventual representation in the Turkish parliament in modern times.

   Since HEP's founding congress could not be held in time for it to qualify for the national elections in 1991, 22 HEP members rejoined the SHP and were elected to the new parliament. Leyla Zana and Hatip Dicle, two of these HEP members, caused an uproar in Turkey when they refused to take the traditional oath of office for parliament. Instead, Zana, wearing Kurdish national colors on her headband, declared, "I take this oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples."

   Most Turks saw HEP as simply a front for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). HEP was banned in June 1993 and was succeeded by the Demokrasi Partisi (DEP), or Democracy Party, which itself was banned in 1994, only to be succeeded by the Halkin Demokrasi Partisi (HADEP), or Peoples Democracy Party, which also was banned in 2003. Mehmet Sincar, a former HEP member and then a DEP member of parliament, was murdered in September 1993, probably by state security officers. Leyla Zana and seven other members of HEP's successor DEP had their parliamentary immunity lifted in March 1994 and were imprisoned. Zana, who had become an international cause celebre, was finally released from prison in 2004 but faced renewed criminal charges for her advocacy of Kurdish rights as of 2010.