Nalin Pekgul

Nalin Pekgul
Pekgul in 2007
Born (1967-04-30) 30 April 1967 (age 57)
Batman, Turkey
NationalityTurkish, Swedish
OccupationPolitician
Years active1994–present
Known forFormer member of the Swedish parliament
SpouseCheko Pekgul

Nalin Pekgul (née Baksi, born 30 April 1967) is a Swedish Social Democratic politician, nurse and former parliamentarian. She was the first Muslim woman to sit in the Swedish Parliament.

Life

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Pekgul was born in Batman, Turkey, but migrated to Sweden with her family in 1980 when she was 13. She is the sister of the Kurdish nationalist and anti-racism activist Kurdo Baksi and niece of the author Mahmut Baksi. Pekgul trained as a nurse, a profession in which she worked both before and after her election as a politician.[1]

Political activities

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In 1982, Pekgul joined the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League in Tensta, a suburb of Stockholm.

Between 1994 and 2002, Pekgul was a member of the Swedish parliament. She was chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden (Swedish: Sveriges socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbund) 2003–2011.[2] Aftonbladet noted that Pekgul was the first Muslim woman to be elected to the Swedish parliament.[3]

Pekgul has supported a progressive form of Islam and ideas of Islamic feminism.[2] She supports the Swedish monarchy and has argued that the Social Democrats should remove calls for a republic from their party programme.[4]

After an absence from Swedish politics of seven years, Pekgul announced in 2018 that she would make a political comeback to campaign against religious extremism and honour culture.[5][6] She campaigned in Gothenburg with Ann-Sofie Hermansson, chairman of the municipal council. She told Aftonbladet that it is the fight against the Sweden Democrats that engages her.[3] The Social Democrats have been criticised for not raising issues of honour violence for fear of losing votes.[6]

References

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  1. ^ Russell, Jesse (13 July 2012). Nalin Pekgul. p. 34. ISBN 978-5512346129.
  2. ^ a b ""Jag utmanar starka krafter"". www.dagenssamhalle.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  3. ^ a b "Nalin Pekgul gör politisk comeback". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). 27 June 2018. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  4. ^ SvenskPolitik1 (2013-07-31), Ekots lördagsintervju 2006 - Nalin Pekgul (S), archived from the original on 2021-12-19, retrieved 2019-03-25{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Joelsson, Filip. "Nalin Pekgul gör politisk comeback – ska bekämpa extremism". Metro (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2019-03-25. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  6. ^ a b "Avgående S-profilen tog kamp mot extremism". varldenidag.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2019-03-28.