Sevim Dağdelen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theBundestag forNorth Rhine-Westphalia | |
| In office 18 October 2005 – 23 February 2025 | |
| Constituency | Left Party List |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1975-09-04)4 September 1975 (age 50) Duisburg, Germany |
| Political party | Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (since 2023) |
| Other political affiliations | The Left (until 2023) |
| Alma mater | |
| Website | sevimdagdelen |
Sevim Dağdelen (born 4 September 1975) is a German politician and a member of theBundestag. She was elected forLeft Party (die Linke) and switched in October 2023 toBündnis Sahra Wagenknecht.
Born inDuisburg toKurdish Alevi immigrants of theAlevi faith fromErzincan,[1][2] Sevim Dağdelen finished high school in 1997. She studied law at theUniversity of Marburg and then at theUniversity of Adelaide, Australia for a year. She later attended theUniversity of Cologne but did not complete her law studies. She dropped out to pursue her political career.[3]
She worked for the left-wing Turkish newspaperEvrensel and German publicationsTatsachen andJunge Stimme and has continued membership in the worker unions.[4]
After joining theLeft Party, Dağdelen became a member of the regional-level party council ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia and the federal student agency from 1996 to 1998. From 1993 to 2001, she was a member of the federal youth commission. From 2005 to 2025, she was a member of the GermanBundestag.[5]
Dağdelen participated in theState dinner withAngela Merkel at theWhite House in June 2011.[6]
Dağdelen visitedJulian Assange at theEmbassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom in September 2012, passing on to him "solidarity ... from the left in Germany and the online community in Germany".[7]
She was re-elected into theBundestag for the fifth time following the2021 German federal election.
She is known to be a supporter of the KurdishPeople's Protection Units (YPG). She showed the flag of the YPG in theBundestag which is forbidden in Germany.[8] She also opposes the German foreign policy regarding Turkey that attacked the YPG inAfrin. Her appearance at a regionalIG Metall congress in 2018 led to controversy. Turks started a social media campaign to end their membership in the workers union.[9]
Sahra Wagenknecht presented her new party, BSW, during a press conference on 23 October 2023. Dağdelen is one of the MPs who left The Left and joined Wagenknecht's party. It was announced the same day.
Dağdelen published a new book, titledNATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance, in July 2024, discussing it withAmy Goodman ofDemocracy Now! on 10 July.
In the2025 federal election, she will stand as adirect candidate in theBerlin-Mitte constituency.[10]
In February 2022, Dağdelen said Russia had no interest in aninvasion of Ukraine and was concerned with its legitimate security interests. She also called for a neutral status for Ukraine. On 18 February 2022, she appeared at a demonstration in Berlin with the slogan "Security for Russia is security for our country". She accused the German media of spreading the "tall tales of the U.S. intelligence service".[11] After the Russian invasion occurred, Dağdelen was among the co-signers of a statement attributing significant responsibility for the Russian invasion to the United States.[12] In April 2022, she praised German protesters who opposed an increase in German military spending, and she described it as "madness" to deliver military weapons to Ukraine.[13]
Dağdelen criticized European Union commission presidentUrsula von der Leyen's speech in early 2023 that called for a new EU policy towards China, saying that "the EU and its member states want to challenge the emerging power China, including military means."[14]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
