İpekçi was born in Istanbul, Turkey to a wealthy and prominent elite Dönmeh family of the Karakaşı denominational sect originally from Salonica.

A respected journalist, he was a proponent of the separation of religion and state, and an advocate of dialogue and conciliation with Greece, as well as of human rights for various minorities in Turkey.

İpekçi favored left-leaning causes and groups outside of the main secularist, center-leftist and Kemalist Republican People's Party.

On 1 February 1979, two members of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, Oral Çelik and Mehmet Ali Ağca (who later shot Pope John Paul II), murdered Abdi İpekçi in his car on the way back home from his office in front of his apartment building in Istanbul.

İpekçi had learned that the counter-guerrilla were inducting civilians into a clandestine anti-communist organization without the knowledge of the Turkish chief of staff.

The memorial depicts İpekçi's bust held by one male and one female student with a dove atop symbolizing peace.