Free Speech in Turkey and the World with Timothy Garton Ash

IPC hosted a rare event that provided a closer look into the “Free Speech in Turkey and the World.” The renowned academic and public intellectual Timothy Garton Ash, who is also a professor at the University of Oxford and a regular contributor to the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, delivered the keynote speech. Ash elaborated on the impediments to the freedom of speech in Turkey and around the globe, and he shared his insight on removing those obstacles. IPC Senior Scholar Ayşe Kadıoğlu, who put together this timely event, chaired the expert panel, which featured Hasan Cemal (Milliyet), Yasemin İnceoğlu (Galatasaray University), and Halil Berktay (Sabancı University), and Kerem Öktem (Oxford University). The panel focused not only on the actual limits to free speech in Turkey, but also included a theoretical debate on the possible limits to free speech. The “Turkey Free Speech Debate” also introduced a new Oxford-based website on this issue. The website can be accessed at freespeechdebate.com.