Ali Hakan Altınay is the Director of the European School of Politics, and the President of the Global Civics Academy. His book, Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights In an Interdependent World, reflects work done at Yale, and was published in 2011 by Brookings Institution, which was later translated into Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. His writings have appeared at Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, and Project Syndicate. Altınay was also the founding director of the Open Society Foundation in Turkey.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) in Turkey have been subjected to judicial harassment, including criminal prosecution, violent attacks, threats, surveillance, prolonged arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment. In the aftermath of an attempted coup in July 2016, the environment for the work of HRDs deteriorated even further.
