Founded under the Hrant Dink Foundation, ASULIS Discourse, Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory has been designed as an interdisciplinary space to engage from experimental studies and research in the field of discourse studies to conduct discussions on methods to combat discrimination as well as discriminatory discourse and its consequences.

The word asulis, which is composed of the combination of the verbs asel (to say) and lsel (to listen) in Armenian and commonly used as conversation and chat was chosen as the name of the laboratory. ASULIS represents a first in Turkey in terms of an organization to engage in activities on discourse studies. The gathering resources on discriminatory discourse, hate speech, discourse analysis, etc. for the ASULIS Collection established under the Hrant Dink Foundation Library is still in process.

The first ASULIS report is prepared with the main support of Open Society Foundation and contributions of Istanbul Policy Center and Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ MyMedia Programme based on its preparation process during the 2014-2015 period. The sections of the report include short definitions of different concepts (such as hate speech, discriminatory discourse and dangerous speech), the research conducted on hate speech between 2009-2015 by the Foundation, suggestions for the laboratory’s methods and areas of work based on the meetings and panels organized during its preparatory process as well as the vision, mission and structure of ASULIS.