Dear Friends of the Hrant Dink Foundation,

Our March newsletter is packed with events, developments, and news. This month, we are happy to inform you about important topics such as combating hate speech, the Minority Rights Academy, cultural heritage content, and the International Hrant Dink Award nomination process. Here is what we will be doing in March.

You are invited to the "Hate Speech: Current Discussions and Alternative Approaches" event to be held on March 14-15. In this two-day program, we will discuss in depth the processes of defining and detecting hate speech, talk about different monitoring studies and conceptual approaches. We will also focus on alternative strategies for combating hate speech.

During the event, the artificial intelligence tool "pari" developed in collaboration with the Hrant Dink Foundation, Boğaziçi University, and Sabancı University will be introduced. Participants will also have the opportunity to review our newly published reports. This event is dedicated to the memory of our valuable board member, Prof. Dr. Fuat Keyman, who pioneered the establishment of the ASULIS Discourse, Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory and whom we lost last year.

We are happy to share that the Minority Rights Academy has completed its first term and applications for the 2025 term are now open. The Academy program covers topics such as the definition and transformation of the minority concept, related legal legislation, the political history of minorities in Turkey, and challenges experienced in practice. You can find the application conditions and detailed information below.

Meanwhile, the KarDes mobile application continues to grow with new cultural heritage content and oral history narratives. You can explore new routes with the Diyarbakır content and Istanbul's Water Heritage content, watch the recording of the Istanbul Water Heritage launch event if you missed it, and listen to the stories of the stops from those who contributed to the tour's preparation.

Lastly, we would like to remind you that laureates of the International Hrant Dink Award are determined each year through your nominations. We look forward to receiving your nominations for the 2025 award!

You are invited to the Hate Speech: Current Debates and Alternative Approaches event which will be held on Friday and Saturday, 14-15 March 2025. Over the course of two days, the event will explore topics such as defining and identifying hate speech, addressing various monitoring practices, and discussing conceptual debates.

The International Hrant Dink Award laureates will be announced on September 15th, 2025 for the seventeenth time at this year's award ceremony. You can send your nominations until the 30th of April 2025.

The HDV Minority Rights Academy, a program organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation, has successfully concluded with a two-phase program conducted both in-person and online.

After successfully completing its first round in 2024, the application process for the second round of the HDV Minority Rights Academy has started! The program aims to discuss minority rights efforts in Turkey and worldwide, raise awareness, and contribute to developing solution proposals.

KarDes Multicultural Memory Tour Guide mobile application brings together the multicultural history and memory of Diyarbakir with the newly added Hançepek, the Other Neighborhood and Yenişehir tours! 

KarDes: Multicultural Memory Tours Guide mobile application, developed by the Hrant Dink Foundation, has added a new thematic tour to its Istanbul content. 

Within the scope of the KarDes: Multicultural Memory Tours Guide mobile application project, the launch event for the ‘Istanbul's Water Heritage Tour,’ was held on Wednesday, February 19th at the Anarad Hığutyun Building. 

The Hrant Dink Foundation’s Workshops on Rights-based Living aim to promote pluralism, multiculturalism, coexistence, equal citizenship and empathy. It is implemented as two separate and independent workshops under the headings 'Representation' and 'Social Memory and Coexistence'.

The face to face guided tour at 23.5 focuses on the life and struggle of Hrant Dink and offers a dialogue on recent Turkish history in the context of minority rights, human rights and democratization. To register for the tour, you can fill in the form by selecting the day you would like to attend.

Hrant Dink’s office at 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory consists of furniture, books, documents, pictures that are hung on the wall, photos, trinkets, and souvenir objects. While decorating his room, Hrant Dink selected images that are linked to each other. The duration of the workshop is approximately 2 hours. 

In this episode of Azınlık Hâlleri, we discussed the significance of music for minorities, with a particular focus on Armenians with our guest, Melissa Bilal. We also explored how lullabies carry memory across generations.

In this episode of Söylemin Halleri, we talked about the legal regulations on artificial intelligence tools with our guest lawyer Selin Çetin.