Sevim Dağdelen
Sevim Dağdelen is a German politician and a member of the Left Party.Early years
Born in Duisburg to Kurdish immigrants, Sevim Dağdelen finished high school in 1997, and studied law first at the University of Marburg and then at the University of Adelaide, Australia and later at the University of Cologne. She never finished her law studies and subsequently dropped out to pursue her political career.
She worked as a journalist for the Turkish newspaper Evrensel and German publications Tatsachen and Junge Stimme. She was also active as a translator.Career
After joining the Left Party, Dağdelen became a member of the regional-level party council of North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal student agency from 1996–1998. From 1993–2001, she was a member of the federal youth commission. Since 2005, she has been a member of the German Bundestag.
Dağdelen participated in the State dinner with Angela Merkel at the White House in June 2011.
In 2012 Dağdelen faced criticism for signing a controversial pamphlet accusing the U.S. of preparing war against Syria and Iran. Dağdelen is also the only politician to have visited Julian Assange while he was at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom.
Dağdelen was re-elected into the Bundestag for the fourth time following the 2017 election.
She is currently presiding the German-Turkish Parliamentarian group in the Bundestag.
She is known to be a supporter of the Kurdish People's Protections Units as she showed the flag of the YPG in the Bundestag which in Germany is forbidden. She also opposes the German foreign policy regarding Turkey, who attacked the YPG in Afrin. Her appearance at a regional IG Metall congress in 2018 lead to a controversy, as Turks made a social media campaign to end their membership in the workers union.
