Hatay State (Turkish: Hatay Devleti, French: État du Hatay, Arabic: دولة هتاي), also known informally as the Republic of Hatay, was a transitional political entity that formally existed from September 7, 1938 to June 29, 1939 in the territory of the Sanjak of Alexandretta of the French Mandate of Syria. The State was transformed de jure into the Hatay Province on July 7, 1939 and joined Turkey de facto on July 23, 1939. Hatay Province also includes districts of Erzin, Dörtyol and Hassa in addition to former Hatay State territories.
Formerly part of the Aleppo province of the Ottoman Empire, the Sanjak of Alexandretta was occupied by France at the end of World War I and constituted part of the French Mandate of Syria.
The Sanjak of Alexandretta was an autonomous sanjak from 1921 to 1923, as a result of the French-Turkish treaty of 20 October 1921, considering the presence of an important Turkish community alongside with Arab and Armenian ones. Then it was attached to the State of Aleppo, then in 1925 it was directly attached to the State of Syria, still with a special administrative status.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (IPA: [ɾeˈd͡ʒep tajˈjip ˈæɾdoan]; born 26 February 1954) has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara University's Faculty of Economics and Commercial Sciences. Erdoğan was also a semi-professional footballer from 1969 to 1982.
Erdoğan was elected Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections of 27 March 1994. He was banned from office and sentenced to a prison term for reciting a poem during a public address in the province of Siirt on 12 December 1997. The poem was allegedly quoted from a book published by a state enterprise and one that had been recommended to teachers by the Ministry of Education. After six months in prison, Erdoğan established the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on August 14, 2001. From its first year, the AK Party became the largest publicly-supported political movement in Turkey. In the general election of 2002 the AK Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament, forming the first single-party government for 9 years.
Anita McNaught (born 1965) is a United Kingdom/New Zealand dual nationality freelance journalist and television presenter, currently working for Al Jazeera English.
Born in London in 1965, at the age of 20 she moved to New Zealand where she worked for 12 years before returning to the United Kingdom in 1997. She has worked as a television reporter for Television New Zealand (TVNZ), CNN and Al Jazeera English, and has also contributed prominently to radio as a regular contributor on Radio New Zealand - and in print journalism.
At the age of 22, McNaught began work as a reporter for TVNZ. She went on to become a popular presenter for a number of news and current affairs programmes. In 1995, she moved to the competitor channel TV3 where she worked as a reporter on the current affairs programme 20/20.
Upon her return to the United Kingdom in 1997, she joined the BBC as a freelance journalist, presenting various programmes on BBC World News such as The World Today and Asia Today, as well as general news bulletins, until 2004. During her time in the country, she also presented BBC Two's Open Minds arts and culture series in 1999, as well as Channel 4 television's miscarriage of justice series Clear My Name in 1998. Between 2000 and 2001, she also wrote features for The Times newspaper. Upon leaving BBC World, she continued to work on a freelance basis for other BBC departments, in one case working on BBC Radio 5 Live's 5 Live Report.
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.