Murat Çelikkan is a Turkish human rights defender and journalist. He is founder of some human rights organizations in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

: Human Rights Association, Amnesty International Turkey and Citizens Assembly and co-director of Hafıza Merkezi (Truth Justice Memory Center) He was awarded the ''Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award 2018'', by

Civil Rights Defenders Civil Rights Defenders (Formerly the Swedish Helsinki Committee) is an international non-governmental organisation based in Stockholm, Sweden, that does human rights work with a focus on civil and political rights. They primarily work to support ...

Education and work

Murat Çelikkan graduated from

Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a prestigious public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, ...

. He is a recent alumnus of the

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

Institute for the Study of Human Rights Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability Program. He took part in ''Editors in Chief on Watch'' campaign for the newspaper

Özgür Gündem ''Özgür Gündem'' (Turkish language, Turkish for "Free Agenda") was an Istanbul-based daily Turkish language newspaper, mainly read by Kurds. Launched in May 1992, the newspaper was known for its extensive reporting on the Kurdish-Turkish confl ...

. For this he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in 2017.

References

* Turkish human rights activists Turkish journalists {{Turkey-bio-stub Middle East Technical University alumni