Dilan Karamanoğlu /JINHA

İSTANBUL –Beyza Üstün, professor of environmental engineering at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, is running for Turkey's Parliament with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Istanbul on a platform of peace work and environmental struggle.

Since 2008, Beyza has been involved in efforts against the privatization of water sources in various sites across Turkey, from Mesopotamia to Thrace. Although Beyza's background is in environmental struggle, she also organizes with the educators' union Eğitim-Sen. She also takes part in academic freedom efforts as part of the University Solidarity Platform and the group "The Academy Won't Be Silent."

Beyza says her connection with the HDP is not new; she has long been active in the Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) Environmental Assembly, based on the same principles as the opposition party. Her environmentalism is an anti-capitalist, pro-popular struggle that intersects with the pluralism of the HDP's project.

"Labor is exploited and the ecosystem is exploited too," she said, "because the system, to protect itself, is speeding up the process of capitalism."

She said she organized in this political structure as a place where she could realize "a struggle that works to end subcontracting work, killing in the workplace, murders of women, and the entry of capital into the ecosystem."

Beyza is running as the fifth candidate on the HDP list for Istanbul's third region.

(fk/cm)