Participate in our exceptional meeting "Osman Kavala, passeur of memory in perpetuity"

Following an unfair trial, Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist and president of the Anadolu Kultur foundation, the main initiator of actions for reconciliation with the Kurds and the Armenians, was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 April by the special criminal court no. 13 of Istanbul.   This tireless defender of an open Turkey has worked for a long time with the Memorial to facilitate a better knowledge of the Holocaust among Turkish civil society. Osman Kavala and his co-defendants represent a Turkey committed to the defense of freedoms, democracy, intercultural dialogue and remembrance. The speakers will decrypt the falsification of history also at work in Turkey.

Irmgard Maria Fellner, Deputy Director-General for Culture and Communication, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Hamit Bozarslan Director of studies at the EHESS, historian and political scientist His research focuses on the history and sociology of violence in the Middle East, on the Kurdish question. He co-directed between 2002 and 2008 the Institute for the Study of Islam and Societies of the Muslim World. He is part of the editorial board of Critique internationale as well as Cultures et Conflits

Ahmet Insel, intellectual figure, economist and political scientist, professor emeritus Ahmet Insel is one of the founders of the Turkish publishing house Iletisim. He is one of the Turkish intellectuals who initiated the petition of apology to the Armenians which gathered 30,000 signatures in Turkey.

Nora Seni, historian, political scientist, professor at the French Institute of Geopolitics at Paris8 University, specialist in Turkey and memory policies, director of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul from 2008 to 2012, member of the editorial board of the journal «The Cahiers du Judaïsme» until its disappearance in 2009, member of the Extraduction commission of the CNL.

Legend: Osman Kavala

Credits: Anadolu Kultur