Nilüfer Gündoğan
Nilüfer Gündoğan (born 6 June 1977) is a Dutch politician, who serves as a member of the House of Representatives. She was elected to the House in the 2021 general election on behalf of Volt Netherlands. In February 2022 she was suspended from its parliamentary group, following internal reports of unacceptable behavior. Gündoğan had before worked as a consultant and manager. Early life and career. Gündoğan was born on 6 June 1977 in Nazımiye, Tunceli Province, Turkey into an Alevi family, belonging to the Zazas. She has a brother and a sister. Her father had been a teacher  in Turkey and had moved to the Netherlands as a guest worker to work in a factory. When Gündoğan was 18 months old and when her father had been in the Netherlands for five years, her family moved to the Netherlands, and she grew up in the Limburg city Weert. There, she attended the secondary school Philips van Horne. She moved in 1996 to Amsterdam to study medicine, but she quit in 2003 without a degree. She has told that she was unable to complete her studies due to a hospitalization and a depression caused by family issues, and she  has called her father violent. In the years 2005–07, she studied political science at Leiden University, but she again did not graduate. Gündoğan worked simultaneously project assistant for the municipality of Amsterdam. She held the position of strategic renewal project manager at the municipality between 2009 and 2012. Gündoğan later worked as a consultant, account manager, and interim manager at several other organizations including Rainman Group and jb Lorenz. When she was elected to the House, she also owned her own consultancy called Nilüfer Advies. Political career. Gündoğan identifies as a social liberal and joined the political party Democrats 66  (D66) in 2009. She participated in its development program Route66 for two years and served on the board of Amsterdam's D66 wing between late 2011 and 2013. Gündoğan wanted to become D66's in Amsterdam-Zuid for the 2014 elections but lost to Sebastiaan Capel. Over the years, she became disappointed with some aspects of D66, and she joined Volt in 2018, the year after its Dutch branch was founded. Gündoğan stands for a liberal democracy and society and has warned against tampering with liberal democratic principles in the Netherlands. She has been vocal in her support for the  European Union to tackle cross-border issues, including the migrant crisis, climate change, digital security, and liberal democracy. Gündoğan was the second candidate of Volt Netherlands in the 2019 European Parliament elections. The party received 1.93% of the vote, not enough to meet the threshold for a seat in the European Parliament. House of Representatives. In the 2021 Dutch general election, Gündoğan was again placed second on Volt's party list. She received 41,352 preference votes and her party won three seats. Gündoğan was installed into the House of Representatives on 31 March along with Laurens Dassen and Marieke Koekkoek . She is on the Committees for Defence; for Education, Culture and Science; for Finance; and for Public Expenditure. In June 2021, Gündoğan filed a motion to prohibit tobacco lobbying, but it came seven votes short of passing the House. Another proposal of her was a new tax on profit made from the sale of a house, similar to an existing one in France, in order to address rising housing prices by combatting speculation. She also wrote a letter to Speaker Vera Bergkamp with Sjoerd Sjoerdsma (D66), in which they called for a discussion with the House's presidium to address  threatening comments made by House members of Forum for Democracy (FVD) during debates. One of the incidents they referred to occurred in 2021 when Gündoğan had complained about intimidating emails by DENK and FVD supporters. House member Gideon van Meijeren had subsequently said that he was very proud that his supporters were going all out to change her mind about the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gündoğan continued to speak out against extreme language and threats on social media, and she filed a police report following death threats. She mostly blamed right-wing populist politicians, calling Geert Wilders  a "nasty fascist" on Twitter. Volt announced on 13 February 2022 that they had suspended Gündoğan from their parliamentary group after having received reports of unacceptable behavior. The party did not elaborate on the allegations because of an ongoing external investigation and Gündoğan stated that she was unsure about what she was being accused of as well. The announcement followed a wave of allegations of unacceptable behavior against high-profile people in the Netherlands. In a statement, Gündoğan called her suspension a disproportionate measure, and she declared she would keep her House seat regardless of the outcome of the investigation . She also wrote that she was going through a rough period due to threats and that she would be sorry if her style of working had made anyone feel unsafe. Her lawyers announced on 18 February that Gündoğan would take legal action against Volt in order to end her suspension, to get a rectification, and to receive damages, while the party stated that she was unwilling to cooperate with the external investigation. Personal life. Gündoğan has been living in Amsterdam since 1996. She was married to Bas Vogels, whom she knew from D66. Bas was diagnosed with incurable colorectal cancer  two months after their relationship had started. They married in 2014, and Nilüfer subsequently bore the last name Vogels. Bas was euthanized in March 2017, four months after the birth of their son. Gündoğan raises her son as a single parent. She is an atheist.