Ahmet Altan

A working journalist for more than twenty years, he has served in all stages of the profession, from being a night shift reporter to editor in chief in various newspapers.

In addition to having written columns in several Turkish newspapers, including Hürriyet, Milliyet and Radikal, Altan has produced news programming for television.

He was fired from Milliyet after writing a column on 17 April 1995 titled "Atakürt", which presented an alternate history of Turkey as a Kurdish state ("Kürdiye") in which ethnic Turks are oppressed and forced to assimilate.

[3] In 2007 he became the founding editor-in-chief and lead columnist of the Taraf, a daily Turkish newspaper, and remained in the position until his resignation in December 2012.

[6] As the editor of Taraf, Altan was accused of working to silence allegations of the Gülen movement cheating in compulsory public servants' examinations in Turkey to further their power in the state.

[9] In September 2017, while banned from written communications, Altan produced an essay The Writer's Paradox in which he says: 'I am writing these words from a prison cell ...

[14] From prison, he wrote notes he gave to his lawyers,[15] and published his memoirs under the title I Will Never See the World Again,[16] translated into English by Yasemin Çongar.