CNN Türk is the Turkish version of the popular cable news channel CNN. CNN Türk is a nationwide channel broadcasting exclusively in Turkey, owned by Time Warner and Doğan Medya Grubu, broadcasting since October 11, 1999. It has its headquarters in Istanbul.

Selahattin Demirtaş (born 10 April 1973, in Palu, Turkey) is a kurdish Turkish-speaking pro-Kurdish politician whose parent speak Zaza dialect of Kurdish language. He became the chairman of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in January 2010.

He graduated from Ankara University Law Faculty. He is on the Board of Directors of the Diyarbakir Branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD).

Selahattin Demirtaş was elected to the Turkish Parliament in the 2007 election as an MP for Diyarbakir for the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which eventually re-formed as the BDP.

He is married and has two children. His brother, Nurettin Demirtaş was also an active politician and the leader of the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

In September 2010, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is banned as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

Demirtaş emerged as a leader of the BDP's civil disobedience campaign during the 2011 Kurdish protests in Turkey, which he compared to concurrent protests in the region, especially the revolution in Egypt. He spoke with President Abdullah Gul on behalf of the Kurdish population after the fatal shooting of a BDP supporter by police in April.

Şivan Perwer (pron: Shivân Parwar) (born on September 23, 1955 in Sarıdam (Sorî), Siverek, Turkey as İsmail Aygün) is a Kurdish poet, writer, musical teacher, singer, and performer on the tembûr (lute). Şivan lives in exile after fleeing Turkey in 1976 because of his music.

For many years, his songs were banned in Iraq, Syria,and Turkey because they are sung in Kurdish and often cite the oppression against the Kurdish people in the Middle East.

Şivan's homemade recordings were smuggled over the border, while thousands of people came to see him perform live. Fearing for his life and the welfare of his family and after calls from Turkish authorities demanding his arrest, he fled Turkey and settled in Germany in 1976. There, Şivan recorded his first official album of traditional Kurdish songs.

In 1991, Şivan appeared at the "Simple Truth" Live aid concert, performing alongside Peter Gabriel, Sting, Paul Simon, Tom Jones, Gipsy Kings as well as other international artists. The proceeds from the concert went to the aid of Kurdish refugees in the Iraqi Kurdistan fleeing the Gulf War and was considered as one of the most important humanitarian efforts for the region.

Ayhan Çarkın (1962, Erzurum) was a policeman. He was a member of its special forces unit, and says with the sanction of state officials he personally killed 1000 people at the height of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. The leader of the Special Operations Department (Turkish: Özel Harekât Dairesi), İbrahim Şahin, said Çarkın was the most fearless policeman he had ever met.

Çarkın grew up in Erzincan. He came from an underprivileged family that was unable to fund his high school education; he dropped out. The year after the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was established (1984), he signed up to the police force. He received training in special warfare from Korkut Eken. He was deployed in Diyarbakır under chief Şahin, who described Çarkın as his best man. He gained a reputation for conducting lightning-fast raids—350 in all—though some have suggested the possibility that some of his victims might have been innocent.

Later, Şahin took Çarkın to Istanbul to target Dev-Sol militants. He led a raid on 12 July 1991 in which eleven were killed. Relatives of the victims took the state to the European Court of Human Rights, and won the case. Çarkın's next raid was on 16 April 1992; three were killed. Twenty people including Çarkın were sued; this time he was acquitted. Another was the "Perpa" raid on 13 August 1993 in which Selma Çıtlak, Mehmet Salgın, Sabri Atılmış, Hakan Kasa, and Mehmet Akyürek were killed. Five of the eight participating policemen were initially sentenced to death, but this was reduced to three years and ten months in prison. They were all acquitted by the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (pronounced [ceˈmal kɯɫɯtʃˈdaɾoːɫu]; born 17 December 1948) is a Turkish social democrat politician. He is currently leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and Leader of the Main Opposition in Turkey. He has been a Member of Parliament for İstanbul since 2002.

He was nominated by the CHP as candidate for Mayor of Istanbul in the 2009 local elections, in which he gained 36.8% of all votes. He is considered likely to breathe new life into the CHP.

He was born on December 17, 1948 in Ballıca village of Nazimiye district in Tunceli Province, eastern Turkey to Kamer, a clerk-recorder of deeds and his wife Yemuş. He was the fourth of seven children. His father was among thousands of exiled Alevis following the failed Dersim Rebellion.

The family belonged to the Cebeligiller clan of the Kureyşan tribe. There are some claims about his ethnicity; some sources mention that he has Kurdish, Zaza origin, but he said his roots have come from Turkmen. His father changed their family name in the 1950s from originally Karabulut to Kılıçdaroğlu since all the people in the village they lived in had the same family name.