Selahattin Demirtaş is co-chair of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and a member of parliament in Turkey. Demirtaş began his political career as a human rights lawyer, serving as president of the Diyarbakır Branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD) and investigating state-sanctioned enforced disappearances, kidnappings, and murders. He also co-founded the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) and the Diyarbakır branch of Amnesty International. He was first elected to parliament in 2007 as an independent candidate, and has represented a number of pro-Kurdish parties since that time. In 2014, the HDP was founded as a pro-Kurdish leftist coalition party, and at the party’s inaugural congress, he was elected to the position of co-chair of the party, along with Figen Yüksekdağ. Under the leadership of Yüksekdağ and Demirtaş, the HDP won 13 percent of the vote in the 2015 general elections.