| Salihe Aydeniz | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | MP |
| Office: | Member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey |
| Constituency: | Diyarbakır (2018) Mardin (2023) |
| Party: | Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DBP) |
| Otherparty: | HDP |
| Termstart: | 24 June 2018 |
| Birth Place: | Ergani, Diyarbakır |
| Office2: | Co-Chair of the Democratic Regions Party |
| Preceded2: | Sebahat Tuncel |
| Termstart2: | December 2019 |
Salihe Aydeniz (born 1973, Ergani, Turkey[1]) is a Kurdish politician of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and a current member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Since November 2019, she is the co-chair of the DBP.[2]
Aydeniz received her primary education in Ergani, Diyarbakır and graduated as a nurse from the health institute in Diyarbakır,[3] going on to work as a nurse in Dargeçit, Mardin. She has presided over the Trade Union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services and been a member of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK).[4]
Aydeniz was elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing the HDP for Diyarbakır in the Parliamentary Election in June 2018.[5] On 30 November 2019, she assumed as a Co-Chair of HDPs sister-party, the DBP, following which she left the HDP. With her membership of the DBP, the party became the tenth party represented in the Turkish parliament. As an MP she is a proponent of a political solution to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict and has said that the Turkish opposition should take a more constructive approach to Kurdish demands in relation to Kurdish language and culture.[6] She rarely goes to Ankara, saying that little can be achieved there: the questions on the human rights situation in Turkish Kurdistan that are submitted to parliament seldom meet with an answer.[7]
In the 2023 Turkish parliamentary election she was elected in Mardin.
After a march in support of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Kadıköy,[8] she punched a police officer while the officer was only standing. After that she was accused of having pushed a police officer and taking part in a march without permission following which a motion was prepared to end her legislative immunity.[9]
She is married and has two children.