Ferhat Tunç


Ferhat Tunç is a Kurdish musician from Turkey.
Ferhat Tunç was born in 1964 in the city of Tunceli in Turkey's eastern province of Tunceli. With twelve years he stood for the first time on stage as a singer. In the late 1970s with sixteen years, he followed his father to Germany. He returned to Turkey in 1985 and began to engage himself in favor of Kurdish rights.
His album Dersim - Kirmanciye Laments of 2012 reached number 9 of World Music Charts Europe in July 2012 and number 10 in August.

Legal prosecution

In June 2012 he was sentenced to 2 years in prison for terror related charges because during a speech in Dersim on 1 May 2011 Tunç said: “I greet you all in the revolutionary spirit of Deniz Gezmiş, Mahir Çayan and İbrahim Kaypakkaya.” All three he greeted are Turkish leftist. On the 20 December 2012 the sentence was turned into a three year ban to speak about the same theme.
On the 25 September 2018 he was sentenced to 1 year 11 months and 11 days in prison for terror propaganda on behalf on the YPG, PKK and KCK due to his social media posts during the fighting between ISIL and Kurdish fighters in Kobanî in 2014 and 2015.
In March 2019 he declared on Twitter that he was leaving Turkey due to the ongoing legal prosecution against him.

Discography