Selahattin Demirtas is a Turkish politician and human rights activist. He is the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). He was elected as the party's co-chair in 2014 and served until his arrest in 2016. He has been a vocal advocate for the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and has been a vocal critic of the Turkish government's policies towards the Kurds. He has been imprisoned since 2016 on charges of terrorism and is currently serving a sentence of four years and eight months. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and 2019. He is a symbol of the struggle for democracy and human rights in Turkey.