Mehmet Tarhan
Mehmet Tarhan (born 1978) is a Kurdish conscientious objector who was imprisoned for refusing military service. Tarhan had been sentenced to four years in a military prison for disobedience after refusing to wear a military uniform, a sentence that is evidently the longest ever given for such an offense in Turkey. He was released in March 2006 after spending several months in prison. As of 2014, he is a member of the party assembly of the Peoples' Democratic Party and a member of the executive committee of its consultative body Peoples' Democratic Congress. Life According to Tarhan, he was born into a Kurdish peasant family. At the age of 17 he worked as a government employee in Diyarbakır. During this time he worked with KAOS GL (an independent political and cultural LGBT group) and Lambdaistanbul (an LGBT civil society initiative). He also became involved in and supported anti-military efforts. Tarhan credits his sexual and ethnic identity with causing him to question militarism. During his days in prison he was offered and accepted to join Jury of Conscience of World Tribunal on Iraq Conscientious objection Tarhan first publicly objected to military service in October 2001. At a press conference in Ankara