Team

Born in 1963, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She graduated from Marmara Faculty of Law in 1988. She has been a member of Istanbul Bar Association since 1989. She is a member of and served as board member in civil society organizations like Human Rights Association, Turkey Human Rights Foundation and Helsinki Citizens Assembly. She attended trainings organized by Istanbul Bar Association Women’s Rights Implementation Center, Bosphorus University Center for European Studies and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a participant and trainer; contributed to some of the publications prepared by these organizations.

Born in Mersin, in 1980. After graduation from Darussafaka High School in Istanbul, she received her BA in Political Sciences from Middle East Technical University (METU). She attended Cultural Studies, MA Program at Istanbul Bilgi University between 2003 and 2005. She has worked at Anadolu Kültür between January 2005 and March 2012 and took part in the development, implementation and reporting of numerous projects. Currently, she is the documentation project coordinator of Hafıza Merkezi.

Meltem Aslan is one of the founding members and the co-director of Hakikat Adalet Hafıza Merkezi (Hafıza Merkezi, engl. Truth Justice Memory Center). Between 2009 and 2018, simultaneous with the position at Hafıza Merkezi, she was the executive director of Anadolu Kultur. Ms. Aslan received her Master of International Affairs (MIA) degree from Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) as a Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) fellow and her Master of Human Rights degree from the European Inter-University. She received her BA in Business Administration from Bosphorus University in Istanbul. Her master thesis focused on violations of freedom of expression in Turkey in the name of state security. Recently, her area of work has focused on transitional justice, dealing with the past and intercultural dialogue and reconciliation through arts and culture. She has attended conferences and workshops on these topics including the ICTJ’s Cape Town Fellowship on Transitional Justice and gave lectures and seminars at various Turkish universities. In the past 15 years, in addition to these areas, she has also done work related to local governance and women’s rights at TESEV and Kadın Yurttaş Ağı Derneği (KAYA) respectively.

Murat Çelikkan has been working as a journalist for the past 25 years in various positions such as reporter, editor, columnist and chief executive editor. Çelikkan has been an active member of the Turkish Human Rights Movement. He was a founding member and has been on the boards of the Human Rights Association, Helsinki Citizens Assembly, Amnesty International and Human Rights Foundation. He has worked on projects related to the Kurdish problem and media ethics., freedom of speech and assembly, refugees, identity politics and peace. Çelikkan is a graduate of Middle East Technical University. He is currently the Advocacy Director of Hafıza Merkezi in İstanbul. He is also the producer of two feature films and the documentary Buka Barane. He has received the Civil Rights Defender of the Year 2018 Award and the 2018 International Hrant Dink Award.

Noémi Lévy-Aksu received her Ph.D in history from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 2010. From 2010 to 2017, she was an assistant professor at Boğaziçi University, Department of History and authored a number of academic publications. She received a British Academy fellowship to conduct her research on regimes of exception in Turkey at Birbeck College, School of Law, betwen 2016 and 2018. She completed a Graduate Diploma in Law in London in 2018 and contributed to the legal work of the Democratic Progress Institute and the Redress Trust in 2018-2019. In 2019-2020, she was a fellow of the Stiftung Mercator re:constitution project and she coordinated a capacity-building program led by the Centre for Democracy and Peace Research’ın (CDPR) to strengthen Solidarity Academies in Turkey. She joined Hafıza Merkezi’s team in June 2020.

Derya completed her undergraduate education at Dicle University's Faculty of Literature. After working as a project coordinator in the European Union projects office of Diyarbakır Chamber of Commerce and Industry for 3 years in 2008, she worked at Diyarbakır Art Center, the Diyarbakır branch of Anadolu Kültür, between 2011-2013. Between 2013 and 2022, Bozarslan worked at Anadolu Kültür's Istanbul office, where she focused on Kurdish literature and language studies, children's books, children's rights and refugees, children living in conflict and war zones, creating project content and programs, developing projects, carrying out logistical fieldwork, and preparing all written and financial reports. Since 2023, she has been working on children's rights violations in Hafıza Merkezi's Memory and Peace program.

They completed their PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University (CEU). They received their MSc degree in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and their MA degree in Gender Studies from CEU. Between 2019 and 2021, they worked as a researcher in three research centers: New Europe College (Bucharest), French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (Prague) ve Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna). Between 2020 and 2022, they worked as project coordinators for two projects funded by the US Department of State and the British Council Turkey. They joined Hafıza Merkezi in 2022 and work as project coordinator in the Memory and Peace Studies program.

She completed her undergraduate education at Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 2015. She completed her master's degree at Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Bonn University in Germany with her work in Criminal Law within the scope of freedom of expression. During this time she assisted in a children's rights project in Kenya. She translated legal texts from German and English to Turkish. She was the project coordinator of the Access to Justice project supported by the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey at the Association for Monitoring Equal Rights in Istanbul. She has been a doctoral student at Istanbul University Social Sciences Institute since 2021. She has been a member of the Istanbul Bar Association since 2020.

Graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Law in 2001. She received her LL.M in Law of Economics from Galatasaray University in 2007 and M.A degree on Cultural Studies Programme from Istanbul Bilgi University in 2011. Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in Public Law at Istanbul Bilgi University. She has been a member of the Istanbul Bar Association since 2003, since then she has been practicing law. She also worked as a project coordinator and general coordinator in the Transparency International Turkey. She supported the works carried out by the Hrant Dink Foundation and Van Bar Association. Since 2013, she has been contributing to independent collective the Networks of Dispossession.

She graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 2012. Beside practicing law, she has been practicing in the area of human rights at Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD), Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) and the Human Rights Association (İHD). She has been a member of the Istanbul Bar Association since 2013.

She received her Bachelor of Law from Cyprus International University. Following her studies, she voluntarily and professionally took part in various civil society organizations’ work in the field of human rights. She interned for the Media Legal Defence Initiative in 2022. She has been a board member of the Foundation for Society and Legal Studies (TOHAV) since 2021. After having worked at the Association for Monitoring Equal Rights between 2019 and 2022, she joined the team at Hafıza Merkezi in February 2023. She has been a member of the Istanbul Bar Association since 2018.

She graduated from Koç University Law School and earned her master’s degree from the London School of Economics. During her studies, she completed traineeships at various non-governmental organisations and the European Court of Human Rights. After having worked as a legal counsel, she joined the team at Hafıza Merkezi in June 2022. She has been a member of the Istanbul Bar Association since 2020.

Born in 1978 in Ankara. She has graduated from Communication Faculty of Ankara University, and has experience in journalism and publication work, as well as in academy and civil society through her involvement in a number of research and EU funded projects. Since 2015 she is a member of the Hafıza Merkezi‘s Dissemination and Advocacy Program. Today she’s working as project officer in Supporting Human Rights Defenders or Organizations program of Hafıza Merkezi.

Received her B.A. from Çankaya University, Department of Political Science and International Relations in 2013. She took part in various projects regarding gender at academic institutions and NGOs during her studies. She has continued her working life in the field of civil society, working in various positions in the fields of gender, prisons and immigration. She joined the Hafıza Merkezi team in November 2022.

Received her B.A. from Galatasaray University Sociology Department and her M.A. from Sabancı University Cultural Studies Program and Galatasaray University Sociology Department. Between 2016- 2021 she worked as the program coordinator at Hrant Dink Foundation’s Asulis Discourse, Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory. She is currently working as the finance coordinator of the Haklara Destek (Support to Rights) program at Hafıza Merkezi.