Hüseyin Kalkan was mayor of Batman

Batman, Turkey

Batman is a city in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey and the capital of Batman Province. It lies on a plateau, 540 meters above sea level, near the confluence of the Batman River and the Tigris. The Batı Raman oil field, which is the largest oil field in Turkey, is located just outside...

 in Southeast Anatolia, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and a member of the Democratic Society Party

Democratic Society Party

The Democratic Society Party was a Kurdish Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social democratic, and had observer status in the Socialist International. It was considered to be the successor of the Democratic People's Party...

. He gained international notoriety November 2008 after he announced plans to sue Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer.He received serious notice after his second feature Memento , which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him,...

, director of The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight (film)

The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...

film, over the allegedly unauthorized use of his city's name.

In August 2007, British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 newspaper The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, as an aside in the last of a 25 paragraph story

Inverted pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text...

 concerning honor suicide

Honor suicide

Honor suicide can mean:* Honor suicide, a form of suicide motivated by personal honor* Forced suicide, a form of honor killing in which the victim is pressured into committing suicide...

 in the region, claimed that Kalkan had been awarded damages by DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 for using his city's name in their Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

Comic book franchise. However, the 2008 news coverage reporting on the Nolan lawsuit (including The Guardian) made no mention of this claim. In fact, news sources made a point of noting that Kalkan was not suing D.C. Comics nor had he raised concerns about infringement before the Nolan lawsuit.

In February 2008 the mayor was sentenced to 10 months in jail for promoting terrorism.