Take part in our exceptional meeting "Osman Kavala, passeur de mémoire à perpétuité"

Following an unfair trial, Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist and the president of the Anadolu Kultur foundation, who is the main initiator of reconciliation efforts with the Kurds and the Armenians, was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 April by the Istanbul Special Criminal Court No. 13.   This indefatigable defender of an open Turkey has worked for a long time with the Memorial to facilitate a better knowledge of the Shoah among Turkish civil society. Osman Kavala and his co-defendants represent a Turkey committed to the defense of freedom, democracy, intercultural dialogue and remembrance. The speakers will decipher the falsification of history also at work in Turkey.

Irmgard Maria Fellner, Deputy Director-General for Culture and Communication, German 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 the Societies of the Muslim World. He is a member of the editorial board of Critique internationale and Cultures et Conflits.

Ahmet Insel, intellectual figure, economist and political scientist, emeritus professor, is one of the founders of the Turkish publishing house Iletisim. He is one of the Turkish intellectuals who initiated the petition to apologize 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 "Les Cahiers du Judaïsme" until its disappearance in 2009, member of the Commission Extraduction of the CNL.

Caption: Osman Kavala

Credits: Anadolu Kultur