Turkey’s Unraveling Democracy

Turkey’s Unraveling Democracy & Impact of US-Turkey Relations

• March 30, 2017 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
  The Palmetto Club Columbia (The program and lunch are free of charge, but RSVP is required.
  Please RSVP to: pludwig@atlanticinstitutesc.org)
  

• March 30, 2017   6:30 pm
  Clemson University, Strom Thurmond Institute

SPEAKERS

Mahir Zeylanov is a Turkish journalist and analyst based in Washington D.C Zeylanov first started his professional career with the Lon Angeles Times. He later worked for Today’s Zaman until the Turkish government shut down the newspaper in 2016. He is writing columns for Al Arabiya and regularly contributing to the Huffington Posts. He is the first journalist in Turkey asked by Erdogan to be imprisoned. He is also the first journalist to be deported from Turkey. He is frequent commentator on developments related to Turkey in world major TV channels, including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and NBC. He rose to international prominence for documenting the massive crackdown on Turkish journalists and he is best known for reporting on the ongoing crackdown in Turkey.

Fatma Gunes was high school teacher in Turkey. She received her master degree in English studies. She got sacked from her school due to the reason that she was linked with Gulen movement. After the 15th July Coup attempt police raided her house and threaten to detain her.  She went through very hard times in Turkey. She has two sons and she had to look after her bedridden mother while the police kept coming to her house. She experienced social exclusion and her children got affected badly from these events. After she had lost her mother, she escaped from Turkey through a boat and was able to fly to USA.