Letters from Istanbul

"The Armenian Weekly", Volume 74, No. 32, August 16, 2007

Over the past two years, the Armenian Weekly has published dozens of interviews with and articles written by Turkish dissident scholars, journalists, and human rights activists in an effort to provide a first-hand account of political and civil society developments in Turkey.

Starting this week, and for the first time in the history of post-genocide Armenian print media, we take another major step in that vein: An Istanbul-based Turkish journalist and human rights activist starts a column in the Weekly.

The bi-weekly column, titled “Letters from Istanbul,” will deal with Turkish political and social issues, in general. The columnist, Ayse Gunaysu, is a familiar name to the readers of the Weekly. She contributed articles to the April 24 special publications in 2007 and 2008.

Gunaysu is a professional translator and human rights advocate. She has been a member of the Committee Against Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association of Turkey (Istanbul branch) since 1995, and was a columnist in a pro-Kurdish daily from 2005–07.

The Weekly welcomes her to the long and distinguished list of columnists in its 75-year history. We appreciate her courage in accepting our invitation to regularly contribute to the Weekly.

Below is Gunaysu’s first column (next link on front page).