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11 December Friday
09.30-09.50
Welcoming Guests
Rakel Dink - Hrant Dink Foundation President
Ronald Meinardus - Head of Friedrich Naumann Foundation Turkey Office
Peter Ericson - General Consul of Sweden in Istanbul
Rakel Dink - Hrant Dink Foundation President
Ronald Meinardus - Head of Friedrich Naumann Foundation Turkey Office
Peter Ericson - General Consul of Sweden in Istanbul
09.50-10.10
Opening Remarks
Yasemin İnceoğlu
Yasemin İnceoğlu
10.10-11.05
PANEL 1 | Hate Speech and Discrimination in Media
Chair: Aidan White
Chair: Aidan White
Elzem Seren Dinç Kırlı - Hate Speech In New Media: Investigation of Hate Speech Including Law Numbered 6222 Created by the Fans
Alexander Royall - National Elections and Securitization Acts in State-Influenced Media
Alexander Royall - National Elections and Securitization Acts in State-Influenced Media
11.15-12.25
PANEL 2 | The politics of discrimination: Perceptions and discourses
Chair: Ayşe Kadıoğlu
Chair: Ayşe Kadıoğlu
Türkay Salim Nefes - Negative perceptions of Jews in Turkish politics: An analysis of parliamentary debates, 1983-2016
Elif İrem Az - The performative force of injurious discourse against Soma coalminers
Steven Aiello - Empathy Storytelling
Elif İrem Az - The performative force of injurious discourse against Soma coalminers
Steven Aiello - Empathy Storytelling
13.25-14.20
PANEL 3 | Racism & Hate speech: Thematic discussion on racist hate speech and its implications
Chair: Ferhat Kentel
Chair: Ferhat Kentel
Ümit Kemal Yıldız - Fundamental British Values: The Perfect Racism
Ezgi Güner - Changing meanings, yet unchanging supremacy of whiteness in Turkey
Ezgi Güner - Changing meanings, yet unchanging supremacy of whiteness in Turkey
14.30-15.25
PANEL 4 | Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Layers of Discrimination
Chair: Didem Danış
Chair: Didem Danış
Şükrü Şimdi - An Analysis of Anti-Syrian Signature Campaigns in Turkey: The Cases from Change.org
Tannuja Rozario & Marina Kumskova & Katie Krueger - Examining the role and influence of gendered power dynamics across the challenges of violence and discrimination impacting Syrian refugee women in Turkey
Tannuja Rozario & Marina Kumskova & Katie Krueger - Examining the role and influence of gendered power dynamics across the challenges of violence and discrimination impacting Syrian refugee women in Turkey
15.35-16.45
PANEL 5 | Hate Speech & Minority Rights
Chair: Ohannes Kılıçdağı
Chair: Ohannes Kılıçdağı
Claire Thomas - Drawing the red line: How and when Freedom of Expression should be limited to control dangerous and/or hate speech: A minority rights activist perspective
Michael Ferguson - Origins of Anti-Black racism in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey? The History of Enslaved and Emancipated African
Murat Ruben - Hate and discrimination crimes against religious minorities in Turkey: National regulations, international conventions and problems with their implementation
Michael Ferguson - Origins of Anti-Black racism in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey? The History of Enslaved and Emancipated African
Murat Ruben - Hate and discrimination crimes against religious minorities in Turkey: National regulations, international conventions and problems with their implementation
16.55-17.50
PANEL 6 | Pandemic: Hate Speech on Social Media during Covid-19
Chair: Mutlu Binark
Chair: Mutlu Binark
Zeynep Özarslan & İlden Dirini & Gökçe Özsu - Hate Speech in Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey
Oğuz Kuş & Yıldıray Kesgin - Digital hate-speech in the context of COVID19: The state of user-generated content under the shadow of a pandemic
Oğuz Kuş & Yıldıray Kesgin - Digital hate-speech in the context of COVID19: The state of user-generated content under the shadow of a pandemic
12 December Saturday
10.00-10.55
PANEL 7 | Discrimination in the field of education: Problems, Practices, Hopes
Chair: Kenan Çayır
Chair: Kenan Çayır
Ellen Kollender - Activism against discrimination in education as a battlefield. What can we learn from current approaches, conflicts, and tactics in Berlin when creating inclusive schools and migration societies?
Nil Delahaye - How does it Feel to be Racialized? Agencies of violence and symptoms observed in some schools of Istanbul
Nil Delahaye - How does it Feel to be Racialized? Agencies of violence and symptoms observed in some schools of Istanbul
11.05-12.15
PANEL 8 | Human Rights & Hate Speech: Legal Perspectives
Chair: Ulaş Karan
Chair: Ulaş Karan
Tuğçe Duygu Köksal - The sharp difference between hate speech and defamatory speech and the positive obligation of the public authorities to investigate hate speech
Hakan Ataman - Populist/Radical/Far/Authoritarian Right as A Fertile Ground for Discrimination
Hakan Ataman - Populist/Radical/Far/Authoritarian Right as A Fertile Ground for Discrimination
12.15-13.45
Side Event: HDF KITCHEN with Takuhi Tovmasyan
Moderator: Levon Bağış
Moderator: Levon Bağış
13.45-14.55
PANEL 9 | Gender-based Discrimination: Hate Speech against LGBTI+
Chair: İdil Engindeniz
Chair: İdil Engindeniz
Koray Başar & Ender Cesur & Seven Kaptan & Şahika Yüksel - Trans Children and Adolescents: Making the Concealed Visible
Berfu Yalçın - Hate speech towards LGBTQ Individuals; A Comparative Approach to recent jurisprudence of the ECtHR and the Turkish Constitutional Court
Eser Selen - For Love's Sake, Beyond Visibility: Supporting LGBTI+ Rights in Turkey
Berfu Yalçın - Hate speech towards LGBTQ Individuals; A Comparative Approach to recent jurisprudence of the ECtHR and the Turkish Constitutional Court
Eser Selen - For Love's Sake, Beyond Visibility: Supporting LGBTI+ Rights in Turkey
15.05-16.15
PANEL 10 | Gender-based Discrimination: Sexist Hate Speech
Chair: Melek Göregenli
Chair: Melek Göregenli
Banu Tuna - Sexist Language and Attacks Against Female Journalists on Social Media
Gülüm Şener - Antifeminist Discourses on Turkish Twitter
Aylin Berna Zamandar Başoğlu - Hate Speech In Digital Games: The Gta V Example
Gülüm Şener - Antifeminist Discourses on Turkish Twitter
Aylin Berna Zamandar Başoğlu - Hate Speech In Digital Games: The Gta V Example
16.25-17.20
PANEL 11 | Combating Discrimination and Hate Speech
Chair: Ayfer Bartu Candan
Chair: Ayfer Bartu Candan
Ayşecan Terzioğlu & Berrin Yanıkoğlu - Istanbul Convention and Hate Speech on Twitter: Analyzing Anti-Istanbul Convention Tweets through the Perspectives of Social and Computer Sciences
Zehra Arat - Tolerance: A Problematic Measure Against Discrimination
Zehra Arat - Tolerance: A Problematic Measure Against Discrimination
17.30-18.15
Closing Remarks
Teun A. van Dijk
Moderator:Yasemin İnceoğlu
Teun A. van Dijk
Moderator:Yasemin İnceoğlu
He is the founder of the Ethical Journalism Network and former General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists. He formerly worked as a journalist for The Guardian and the Financial Times. He has campaigned against racism and xenophobia in media and is the author of To Tell You The Truth, a comprehensive guide to ethical journalism.
He received his undergraduate degree in International Relations and graduate degree in Crisis and Security Management at Leiden University. For his graduate thesis he studied the narrative of right-wing extremist groups in the United States before and immediately after Donald Trump’s electoral success in 2016. He has worked as a threat intelligence analyst where he specialised in the Middle East and North Africa region at Horizon Intelligence before joining the International Relations Unit at the Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS). In addition to writing reports on European foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, he has been analysing media discourse prior to elections in Jordan and other countries.
She is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the Sociology Department at Boğaziçi University. She holds B.A degrees from the Sociology and the Psychology departments at Boğaziçi University and a PhD from the Anthropology Department of the University of California at Berkeley. She taught at Koç University, U.C Berkeley and Stanford University. Her research and teaching interests include urban anthropology; political anthropology; material culture studies; space, power and gender, political ecology. Among her publications are Yeni Istanbul Çalışmaları: Sınırlar, Mücadeleler, Açılımlar (2014) and Kültür Denen Şey: Antropolojik Yaklaşımlar (2018) both from Metis Yayınları and co-edited with Cenk Özbay.
She has received her undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio, Television and Cinema from Ege University. She is still continuing her graduate degree at and working as a research assistant at the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, Faculty of Art of Istanbul Rumeli University. In particular, she has researches on the narrative structure of digital games and comparisons with the dramaturgical structure of cinematic narration. She has been working as a volunteer teacher at the Turkish Women’s Union Association. She prepared and presented radio programs for more than four years at Ege University and worked as a coordinator for various programs within Ege Agency. She continues her academic studies in digital games, cinema and new media.
She is Professor of Political Science at Sabancı University since 1998. She was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies during the 2019-2020 academic year. She was a fellow at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a visiting scholar at Harvard University Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies between 2018-2020. She was the Acting President of Sabancı University (2016-2018) and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (2013-2017) at Sabancı University.
She received her undergraduate and graduate degree in Sociology from Boğaziçi University. She received her Ph. D. in Cultural Anthropology from the City University of New York (CUNY). She had taught at Long Island University, Brooklyn College and Fordham University. She was also a faculty member, at Koç University, Faculty of Health Sciences, and visiting faculty at Galatasaray University, Department of Sociology. She is now an Associate Professor in Cultural Studies and Gender Studies Programs at Sabancı University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Her research interests include Globalization and health inequalities, biopolitics, gender, anthropology of the body and anthropology of the Middle East.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Istanbul University Faculty of Communication, pursues her master’s in Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Programme. Started as a journalist in Hürriyet group in 1997, worked in different capacities from being a reporter to editorial director until November 2019. Besides being the Chairman of the the Istanbul branch of the Turkey Journalists’ Union, she is writing her dissertation on “Sexist Language Towards Women Journalists on Social Media” and works part-time in the “Empowering the Work and Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Turkey” project by the Hakikat Adalet ve Hafıza Merkezi, Eşit Haklar icing İzleme Derneği and the Helsinki Committee of the Netherlands, as well as being an independent journalist.
She received her undergraduate studies in Law at Istanbul University. She received her first graduate degree from Istanbul University, Public Law Department with one year at Justus Liebig University Giessen with the thesis of “The Concept of Network Neutrality in the Scope of the ECHR”. She has also received her second graduate degree in Law from the Europa-Institut with the thesis of “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts and Their Compatibility with International and European Human Rights Protection”. She specialized in European and International Protection of Human Rights and European Economic Law.
She received her bachelor in education in Computer Engineering and her undergraduate education in Mathematics at Bosphorous University. She received her graduate degree and Ph.D. from Dartmouth College. She had worked as a post-doc researcher at Rockefeller University, and visiting professor at Xerox Imaging Systems and IBM Almaden Research Center. She is a Professor of Computer Sciences at Sabancı University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. She is also the founding director of VERIM (Center of Excellence in Data Analytics Sabancı University). Her main research interests are computer vision and machine learning, biometrics, document recognition and image understanding.
She is Deputy Director of Minority Rights Group which is an international NGO which focuses on discrimination and marginalisation of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples. She leads MRG's recent work on hate speech programming which is active in Iraq, Myanmar and Pakistan. The project which is implemented as part of the CREID (Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development) consortium focuses on religious discrimination and minorities.
She received her undergraduate degrees in sociology and political sciences from Boğaziçi University and her graduate degree in sociology from Middle Eastern Technical University. She completed her Ph.D. programme at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in 2008. She gave lectures at various universities in France as a visiting lecturer. She is an associate professor at Galatasaray University in the department of sociology and the founding president of the Association for Migration Research. Her research interests and publications include migration, urban sociology, and social demography.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Istanbul University Faculty of Communication, pursues her master’s in Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Programme. Started as a journalist in Hürriyet group in 1997, worked in different capacities from being a reporter to editorial director until November 2019. Besides being the Chairman of the the Istanbul branch of the Turkey Journalists’ Union, she is writing her dissertation on “Sexist Language Towards Women Journalists on Social Media” and works part-time in the “Empowering the Work and Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Turkey” project by the Hakikat Adalet ve Hafıza Merkezi, Eşit Haklar icing İzleme Derneği and the Helsinki Committee of the Netherlands, as well as being an independent journalist.
She received her undergraduate education in political science and completed her PhD degree in Humanities. She is a Mercator-IPC Fellow 2019/20 at Sabancı University and post-doctoral researcher at the Department for Intercultural and Comparative Education at the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg. Her research focuses on educational inequalities in the age of international migration, especially on how dynamics of racism impact on and are tackled in urban school settings. She evaluated approaches for an anti-racist teacher education and provided counseling on diversity strategies for civil and state actors in Germany. In 2016, she initiated a project aiming to empower school communities in Berlin in addressing institutional discrimination and in working on a common social justice policy.
She received her undergraduate education in the Department of Sports Management at the Faculty of Sport Sciences, at Istanbul University. She joined a certificate program at Kadir Has University under the topic of Sports Communication. She has volunteered to work for sports events and she attended sports science congress to be able to update information, during her university years. In the last year of the university, she did an internship at the Hürriyet Newspaper Sports Service. She received her graduate education in the field of journalism at the Institute of Soicial Sciences of Istanbul University. She wrote her thesis on “Hate Speech in New Media: Investigation of Hate Speech Including Law Numbered 6222 Created by The Fans”. During this period, she published book chapters and articles on topics such as gender, gender discrimination in sports media, hate speech, and new media, cyberbullying. She now continues her studies at as a PhD student and she is a research assistant in the Department of Sports Management at Istanbul Bilgi University.
He graduated from Ankara University, School of Medicine, Psychiatry. He has been working as a psychiatrist in The Council of Forensic Medicine since 2019 and as a co-therapist in Transgender Transition Group and Families and LISTAG Family Group. Clinical and research interests include sexuality, sexual identity and related problems, sexual dysfunctions, and forensic psychiatry. He is a member of Psychiatric Association of Turkey (TPD), Society for Sexual Education, Treatment and Research (CETAD) and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
She received her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at Bilkent University. She has received graduate degree in Fine Arts at Bilkent University, Performance Studies at New York University(NYU). She also holds a PhD in the field of Performance Studies from NYU. holds an associate professor position at the Department of Visual Communication Design and Gender and Women’s Studies Research Center, Kadir Has University, Istanbul. Her research interests are at the intersection of feminisms, performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer studies, and contemporary art. Other than presentations made at national and international conferences, she has been publishing in such journals as Gender, Place, and Culture, Women; Performance, and International Journal of Communication. She is also a visual artist whose work encompasses performance art, installation, and video. She has exhibited and performed in Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Australia.
She has received her undergraduate studies in Cultural Studies at Sabancı University. She is completing her PhD in Anthropology with a minor in African Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work explores the articulation of race and religion with global capitalism in the context of Turkey’s contemporary relations with Africa south of the Sahara. She conducted multisite ethnographic research in Turkey, Tanzania, Senegal, Gambia and Benin. Guner was a visiting fellow in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University and an Ernst Mach fellow at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz.
He received his undergraduate studies in the department of management at Middle East Technical University, he received his graduate degree from the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University and his PhD degree of sociology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He worked at the French Department of Political Sciences of Marmara University, at the Department of Sociology of Istanbul Bilgi University and at the Department of Sociology at Istanbul Şehir University closed recently. His articles, in the framework of sociology of everyday life and sociology of emotions, on modernity, new social movements, religion, Islamic movements, intellectuals, ethnic communities have been published in different journals and books in Turkey and abroad.
He received his undergraduate degree in International Relations at Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences and graduate degree in Media and Visual Studies at Bilkent University. He worked for several media outlets and as a 'fixer' for international news agencies. His research interests are cultural policies, discourse studies, and new media and journalism studies. He currently holds the CoHE (YÖK) 100-2000 Scholarship. He is the co-author of Report on Hate Speech in Social Media in the Covid-19 Pandemic Period.
She has received her undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Communication at Galatasaray University and received her graduate degree from the Media and Communication Institute at Stendhal University-Grenoble III. She completed the Ph.D. programme in Communication Sciences at Marmara University with her thesis, titled “New Public Sphere of Global Capitalism: The Use of the Internet by New Social Movements”. She has been teaching communication and media studies at various universities. Her research interests include digital activism, social movements, and new media culture. Last year, Şener conducted a research, on ‘Feminist Movements and Digital Media in Turkey’ as a visiting fellow at the Media and Communication Department of the London School of Economics (LSE). She has published several publications and editted books on digital activism, video activism, social media and digital gender-based violence. Currently, she is an associate professor at the New Media Department at the 15 November Cyprus University.
He received his undergraduate education in the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Literature, at Ege University. Within the scope of the Human Rights Advocates Program by the Institute for Study of Human Rights at Columbia University in New York, he worked on human rights advocacy with the support of Witney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Fund. He was one of the founding members of Amnesty International Turkey. He worked for several non- governmental organizations in Turkey. After his experience in Citizen' Assembly, he works on “the Freedom of Association and Right to Participation” which is conducted by the Civil Society Development Centre based in Ankara.
After obtaining an undergraduate degree at Galatasaray University in 2001, she completed her master's and doctoral studies at Université Stendhal Grenoble. She works as a lecturer at Galatasaray University. Her fields of study include; public sphere, gender, journalism, communication ethics, and LGBTI + studies
She received her undergraduate degree in Media and Communication and International Relations at Anadolu University. Some of her fields of work are hate speech in new media, freedom of speech, gender equality and social memory. She is a founder member of Alternative Informatics Association and member of the Open Data and Data Journalism Association. In addition, she contributes to Hafıza Kaydı as a researcher and writer. She is the co-author of Hate Speech in New Media and Report on Hate Speech in Social Media in the Covid-19 Pandemic Period.
She is the Executive Director of the Center for Progressive Security (CPS) and the Senior Programs Manager at Atlas Relief and Development International (ARDI). Katie is an experienced international development practitioner utilizing intersectional conflict-, human rights-, and gender-sensitive lenses across a wide range of programmatic focus areas, including peacebuilding, civil society strengthening, capacity building, research, refugee/IDP integration, and preventing/countering violent extremism. By examining the root causes and impacts of hate speech within Istanbul’s refugee and host communities, bridges her roles at ARDI and CPS through a joint project shedding light on the gender and social constructs of power, targeting push-factors relevant to extremism, and developing informed policy recommendations for meaningful social cohesion.
He is a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University Sociology Department and the director of Center for Sociology and Education Studies. His research interests includes identity, citizenhip, discrimination, and conflict in education. He co- edited Anne Frank ve Demokratik Değerler Üzerine ( Holocaust, Anne Frank and on Democratic Values) and Ayrımcılık: Çok Boyutlu Yaklaşımlar (Discrimination: Multidimensional Approaches).
He graduated from Hacettepe University, School of Medicine, Psychiatry. He is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry in Hacettepe University. He was trained in sexual therapy through CETAD’s programme, and served as an executive committee member in 2018-2020. Clinical and research interests include diversity in sexual development, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, the effects of discrimination on well-being of the individual and family, and gender affirmative medical care. He holds monthly meetings with parents of LGBTİ+. He is the secretary general of the Psychiatric Association of Turkey. As a member of EPATH and WPATH, he contributes to the development of the 8th version of the Standards of Care for the Health of Trans and Gender Nonconforming People.
She is a Programmes Director at the Center for Progressive Security (CPS). Marina has been working in the field of terrorism prevention and response since 2013, by being part of numerous projects exploring human rights issues around the world and focusing on the study of enforced disappearances and treatment of terrorist suspects. She added the peace and security work to her portfolio in 2016 by joining the Women, Peace and Security Programme at Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and in 2018, by joining the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) as the UN Liaison.
She has received her graduate and undergraduate degrees from Ege University in Social Psychology. She gave lectures in Social Psychology, Political Psychology and Environmental Psychology and gender. She continues working as an independent researcher on intergroup relations, discrimination, homophobia, gender studies, human rights, conservatism, urban identity and migration. She has numerous nationally and internationally published articles and books on the subjects she works on.
He received his PhD in History at McGill University and he joined the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. In the spring of 2020, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near and Middle East Studies at NYU. He is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Concordia University in Montreal. His work focuses on the history of slavery and migration in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic. Michael is currently completing an article-length project on the food history of enslaved and emancipated African women in the Ottoman Empire.
He received his undergraduate degree in Law from Istanbul. He enrolled in Istanbul Bar Association as a lawyer in 1984. He worked as a lawyer and legal counsel in various private companies in Istanbul. Since 2010 working as a freelance lawyer also he has been working as an expert and foreign language interpreter in various courts in Istanbul. He served in the Istanbul Bar Association's Foreign Relations and Banking-Finance commissions.
She is a professor in Hacettepe University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Informatics and Information Technologies. She is one of the founding members of The Alternative Informatics Association. She has been the Editor of Moment Magazine since July 2017. She is the blogger of www.yenimedya.wordpress.com and www.dijitaloyunkulturu.wordpress.com. Her research interests include communication theories, communication sociology, critical media literacy, new communication and media technologies, creative industries and cultural policy.
She received her undergraduate degree from Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales. In 2008, she completed the graduate programme in Cultural Management with her thesis about sub-saharan migrant artists and minorities’ cultural rights. She worked for the United Nations International Organisation for Migration in Istanbul as project assistant for two years. She stayed in Yerevan as Hrant Dink Foundation’s Turkey- Armenia Fellowship Scheme fellow for 6 months and implemented a dialogue programme using the sport of Capoeira Angola. In 2020, she was awarded the Rotary Peace Fellowship at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. She is the co-founder of BoMoVu, the Network for Sports and Body Movement for Vulnerable Groups which is an Istanbul-based NGO that works on analysing and unveiling power relations and discriminatory practices that are reproduced inside physical practices, with the mission to enable everyones access to their bodily freedoms and rights. Next to being the president of the executive board of BoMoVu since 2016, she co-teaches at Bilgi University on sports programmes for social change. Inside BoMoVu, she develops and implements projects relating to antiracism, peace, gender and inclusion.
He received his undergaduate degree from Marmara University, Faculty of Communication and he has obtained his graduate and Ph.D. degrees from Istanbul University, Institute of Social Sciences. He now works at Istanbul University, Faculty of Communication as research assistant, focuses on hate speech in new media, critical data studies, big data, data mining and content marketing in his studies. He aims to contribute to social sciences by discussing societal issues within the context of big data. Recently, he uses techniques such as text mining and social network analysis in order to shed light on topics such as hate speech, migration and refugee issue. He has made research visits to Vilnius University (Lithuania) and University of Tartu (Estonia). On the other hand, he acted as researcher in the project named E-PROFMAN that was collaboratively realized by Istanbul University (Turkey), DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia) and School of Journalism and Public Relations (Macedonia) between 2015-2018. He has been a member of European Communication Research and Education Association since 2018.
Ohannes Kılıçdağı, after having double major BA degrees from sociology and political science departments of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, continued to his doctoral studies at the department of history of the same university. Between 2003 and 2017, he lectured at İstanbul Bilgi University Sociology Department on social and political history of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. From 2017 to 2019 he was a post-doc fellow at the Center for the Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University. He was appointed as Nikit and Eleanora Ordjanian Visiting Professor at Middle Eastern South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) at the Columbia University for Spring 2020. Currently he is Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno.His special interests are the history of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, intercommunal relations in multi-ethnoreligious societies, citizenship and minorities, the history of citizenship and military service, historical sociology, philosophy of history. He has been writing a column in Agos, an Istanbul bilingual weekly Armenian newspaper established by Hrant Dink and his friends, since 2011.
She graduated from Istanbul University, School of Medicine, Psychiatry. Clinical and research interests include transgender people; post-traumatic problems, particularly in women exposed to sexual violence at home and during detention; conseling, and affirmative therapy with LGBT people and their families; mass violence after bombing, suicide attacks and after large scale accidents. She is the founder and board member of ESTSS, Coordinator of Human Rights and Social Policy Special Interest Group of ISTSS. She is the founding member of Purple Roof, independent shelters for women exposed violence and Human Rights Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims. She works as a psychotherapist in private practice.
She graduated from Bezmialem University, School of Medicine, Psychiatry, with her research on the mental health, family and social support networks and life quality of transsexual individuals. She is a member of CETAD. She has been a co-therapist for informing and supporting the family members of LGBT individuals in LISTAG for twelve years. She holds voluntary monthly group psychotherapy sessions in SPOD for transsexual individuals. She works as a psychotherapist in private practice.
He received his undergraduate degree in Economics at New York University and graduate degree in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. He is an educator and conflict resolution specialist based in Tel Aviv. He founded Debate for Peace in 2016, which has engaged 2,000 students from 100 cities and towns. He is an Honorary Advisor for the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, Project Officer and Dialogue Expert at Asfar, and Head of the Model UN Program at the Academy for Young Diplomats. He was co-Editor of the WIIS Israel Middle East Review, and the first MENA Desk chief for Wikistrat. He is in the top 10% of authors on the SSRN.
He received his undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Communication, Department of Journalism at Ege University. He currently continues his graduate program at the Department of Communication Studies at Çukurova University. As part of his field research conducted in Mersin’s multi-layered Demirtas neighbourhood, he works on the perceptions of the neighbourhood residents towards Syrian immigrants. His research interests include migration and media, the phenomenon of immigration in the context of the right to communication, and hate speech against immigrants.
She is the Director of Research at the Center for Progressive Security (CPS). She is currently a PhD student in Sociology and Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests are gender and sexuality, human rights, and law and society. During her fall and spring semesters, she teaches in the Gender Studies and the Political Science department at John Jay College-CUNY. She is the co-founder of a gender justice organization, South Queens Women’s March and she serves as a consultant for many other gender justice organizations.
Teun A. van Dijk was professor of discourse studies at the University of Amsterdam until 2004, and is at present professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. After earlier work on generative poetics, text grammar, and the psychology of text processing, his work since 1980 takes a more critical perspective and deals with discursive racism, news in the press, ideology, knowledge and context. He is the author of several books in most of these areas. His last monographs in English are Ideology (1998) and Racism and discourse in Spain and Latin America (2005), and his last edited book (with Ruth Wodak), Racism at the Top (2000). Teun van Dijk, who holds two honorary doctorates, has lectured widely in many countries, especially also in Latin America. With Adriana Bolivar he founded the Asociación Latino-americana de Estudios del Discurso (ALED), in 1995. For a list of publications, recent articles, resources for discourse studies and other information, see his homepage: www.discourses.org.
She received her undergraduate degree in law from the Galatasaray University and her graduate degree (LLM) in Human Rights from the University of Strasbourg. She wrote her thesis on “Right to medical care in detention in the light of the ECHR’s caselaw”. She is a PhD student in Human Rights at Galatasaray University. Between the years of 2012 and 2016, she worked at the Registry of European Court of Human Rights as a processing lawyer. She has wide experience on legal issues related to freedom of expression as a lecturer and trainer. She is also acting as an expert and a trainer to the Council of Europe and UNDP in its several projects related to promotion of human rights in Turkey. In 2018, she has been included on the List of Counsel before the International Criminal Court. She is Head of the Human Rights Center of Istanbul Bar Association.
He received his undergraduate degree in Sociology and graduate degree in Political Science from the Middle East Techical University. He received his PhD from the Department of Sociology at the University of Kent. Subsequently, he has held several postdoctoral positions at the University of Freiburg and University of Oxford. Since January 2020, he has been working as a Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the Institute of Policies and Public Goods at Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). His particular research areas are; intergroup hostility in various contexts, such as Turkey and Spain, communication and impacts of sociological theory and developing new research methods and pedagogical innovations.
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He received his undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Law at Marmara University and received his graduate degree on human rights law from the Institute of Social Sciences at Bilgi University. He has completed the Ph.D. programme on public law at Istanbul Bilgi University, Institute of Social Sciences. He has been working as trainer and researcher in Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center since 2017. His research interests includes human rights issues such as prohibition of discrimination, freedom of expression, association and assembly, and the right to individual application to the Constitutional Court. Currently, he is an associate professor at Bilgi University, Faculty of Law, department of Constitutional Law.
He teaches at the Manchester University Institute of Education. His previous teaching experience includes prison education and the FE sector where he taught for fourteen years and specialised in citizenship education and training educators in active citizenship teaching. He is an anti-racist and-fascist community organiser and trade union activist. He is the co-equality officer of the University and College Union (UCU) at the University of Manchester and a nationally elected member of the UCU Black Members Standing Committee. His research combines grassroots anti-racist activism with academic research. This is underpinned by the ethos of a transformative radical pedagogy and anti-racist teaching.
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He received his undergraduate degree from Kadir Has University, Department of Advertising and his received his graduate degree from Yeditepe University, Department of Journalism. He worked as research assistant in Istanbul University and he got his PhD degree in Istanbul University Journalism Department with his thesis titled ‘Media Politics in the Context of Anti-Discrimination in Turkey and U.S.A’. His study areas include new media, social media, women studies, LGBTI+ rights, hate speech, freedom, human rights, racism and antiracism.
She is s Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Founding President of the Human Rights Section of APSA. She studies human rights with an emphasis on women’s rights. She is the human rights book series editor of the Lynne Reinner Publishers and serves on the editorial boards of Human Rights Quarterly, International Feminist Jr. of Politics, Jr. of Human Rights, and Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte. Her recognitions include the APSA Award of Distinguished Scholar in Human Rights and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.
She received her undergraduate and graduate degree in Department of Foreign Languagages at Marmara and Istanbul University. She holds a PhD in communication sciences and is currently an Associate Professor of media studies. She has been working as a lecturer in various public and foundation universities in Istanbul. She is a member of Alternative Informatics Association. She is the co-editor/editor of the following books; Discourse and Ideology; On Suicide; Panopticon: The Power of Eye; Film Theory Volume I and II. Sociology of communication, film studies and new media are some of her fields of study. She provides contribution to some non-governmental organizations to combat hate speech in new media. She is the editor of Report on Hate Speech in Social Media in the Covid-19 Pandemic Period.
Side Event
He was born in Istanbul in 1980. He became interested in wine during his university studies in Public Administration. This curiosity has gradually become his professional life. Levon Bağış attended certificate programs at educational institutions such as the London-based Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), London Wine Academy, Ecole du Vin and reinforced his knowledge with the certificates he received. Between 2003-2009, he took part in the founding team of “New Local Conversations”, which is one of the important works for the identification of Turkish cuisine. He undertook the consultancy of the "Gastronomika" project within Salt. In the 2009-2010 academic year, he taught the "Drinking and Drinking Culture" course as a visiting lecturer in the Gastronomy Department of Okan University. Levon Bağış, whose articles are in Karaf Magazine and FEED magazine, is also the article writer of Kuruyemiş Encyclopedia. Since 2015, he has been giving wine training at the Culinary Arts Academy and writing a column in the weekly AGOS Newspaper.
Takuhi Tovmasyan, who was born in Istanbul Yedikule and has established a special bond with food and cuisine from an early age. She gained great success with her book "Sofranız Şen Olsun". In the book, she tells the memories of her friends around the table, the stories of her relatives by matching the dishes and recipes as if she hosts her readers in her home with her sociable style. She works as a translator of cookbooks at Aras Publishing and also speaks at meetings with the theme of food and table culture.
'International Conference on Hate Speech and Discrimination' was held online on 11-12 December 2020. Through the conference, researchers, civil society workers, lawyers, students, and academics working in areas such as hate speech, media, and discrimination from various parts of Turkey and around the world,came together online. A total of 26 papers were presented in 11 panels at the conference.
On the first day of the conference, Rakel Dink, President of the Hrant Dink Foundation, welcomed the conference participants by emphasizing the unchanging importance of combating discrimination, racism, and hate speech. Following Rakel Dink’s speech, Director Ronald Meinardus Friedrich Naumann Foundation Turkey and Peter Ericson Consul General of Sweden in Istanbul pointed out that considering the current developments all throughout the world, the conference is very crucial and timely considering the discussed subjects.
Yasemin İnceoğlu, Chairperson of the Conference Scientific Committee, in the keynote speech, marked the need to strengthen coexistence and combat hate speech taking into consideration the local and global dimensions of hate speech and discriminatory speech.
On the first day of the conference; presentations were on the topics on hate speech in media, racism, politics of discrimination, minority rights, discrimination against Syrian refugees and hate speech on social media during Covid-19. During the panels, The increasing importance to discuss hate speech and racism, the globality of the subject matter were discussed with examples from different countries from a comparative approach.
On the second day of the conference, hate speech and discrimination were discussed from a conceptual and legal perspective, and examples from field researches were shared from the field of education and digital media. In these panels, the mechanisms to combat hate speech and discriminatory practices were discussed.
The closing remarks of the conference were made by a critical discourse analysis theorist, and prominent name in the hate speech studies Teun A.van Dijk. In his speech, van Dijk emphasized that hate speech should not only be treated as an emotion, but also a shared idea and ideology, and should be treated in relation to the context. He underlined that a focus on anti-racism and anti-discrimination studies, as well as studies on hate speech and discrimination, will also strengthen the struggle.
During the conference, short videos were shared with the participants from the multicultural heritage sites of Istanbul and 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory. Though it was not possible to meet physically, these side events held at the conference tried to compensate for the impossibility of being together. During the second day of the conference, at the HDF Kitchen event, Takuki Tovmasyan and Levon Bağış had a fruitful conversation with the participants about food and multiculturalism.
The conference was broadcast live on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, as well as the Foundation's website, in Turkish and English. Before and during the conference, there were shares on the social media accounts of the foundation with the #ForANewDiscourse # NoToHateSpeech hashtags.
The conference was organized with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
