Deformations of dihedral representations

G. Burde proved (1990) that the SU2(C) representation space of two-bridge knot groups is one-dimensional. The same holds for all torus knot groups. The aim of this note is to prove the following: Given a knot k subset of S-3 we denote by (C) over cap(2) its twofold branched covering space. Assume that there is a prime number p such that H-1((C) over cap(2), Z(p)) congruent to Z(p). Then there exist representations of the knot group onto the binary dihedral group D-p subset of SU2(C) and these representations are smooth points on a one-dimensional curve of representations into SU2(C).