Journalist Banu Güven conducted a conversation with Bülent Şık, laureate of the 2025 International Hrant Dink Award, on September 17, 2025, at the Anarad Higutyun Building, focusing on public health, food safety, and the struggle for rights.

Bülent Şık is a food engineer, environmental and human rights activist, an academic who signed the Academics for Peace petition, and currently serves as the Secretary General of BAYETAV. He has been conducting research in food safety and public health for years, struggling for transparency and accountability.

In the conversation, Şık shares the responsibility that receiving the award carries for him, the connection he has forged with Hrant Dink through his uncle Ahmet Albay, who was lost during the 1980 military coup, and the reasons that led him toward food engineering. He discusses his dismissal from the university by Decree Law, the severe food insecurity problem among children and the population over 60 in Turkey, the threats posed by climate change and drought for the region, and how peace has become an increasingly urgent necessity.

Click here for more detailed information about Bülent Şık.
Click here to watch the 2025 Hrant Dink Award Ceremony.