Sevda Karaca Demir | |
---|---|
Member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey | |
Assumed office June 2, 2023 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1984 (age 39–40) Adana, Turkey |
Political party | EMEP |
Other political affiliations | DEM Party |
Alma mater | Middle Eastern Technical University |
Profession | Journalist |
Sevda Karaca Demir (born, 1984, Adana, Turkey) is a journalist and politician of the Labour Party (EMEP). Since June 2023 she is a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing Gaziantep. Before she was a journalist for the newspaper Evrensel.
Sevda Karaca was born in 1984 in Adana, as the daughter of a textile workers family. She studied political sciences at the Middle Eastern Technical University (ODTÜ) and was tempted by journalism.
In 2007, Sevda Karaca began as a journalist for Evrensel and was also involved in founding Hayat TV.[1] For Hayat TV, Karaca was a reporter from Ankara.[1] She also became the presenter of the show Ekmek ve Gül that focuses on the women's workers rights.[1] In 2010 she established a women's supplement to the Evrensel also called Ekmek ve Gül.[1] In 2016, Hayat TV was shut down in the aftermath of the attempted coup d'état in 2016.[2] In 2018 she received the Metin Göktepe journalism award.[3] in 2021, she was a member of the jury for the Metin Göktepe award.[4]
In the parliamentary elections of May 2023, she was elected into the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing the Green Left Party (YSP) for Gaziantep.[5]
As a politician from Gaziantep, she defends workers rights.[6] In July 2023 she raised awareness about the situations of two workers from a factory owned by İrfan Çeliksan, an MP for the Justice and Development Party (AKP).[6] The workers were allegedly forced to work despite being diagnosed with COVID-19 and subsequently died.[6] The court suspended the investigation into their deaths due to the parliamentary immunity that protects Çeliksan.[6]
Sevda Karaca believes the elections in 2023 were not fair as the Governing alliance used state resources in their electoral campaign.[6] After the parliamentary elections she demanded a repetition of the elections in the Gaziantep province as around 2000 potential voters for the EMEP were inscribed as polling officials by the Patriotic Party without having informed them.[7]