İştar Gözaydın

İştar Gözaydın (April 5, 1959 - Istanbul, Turkey) is a professor of Law and Politics. She is also a founder of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a human rights organization in Turkey. She was a research fellow at the University of London, Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London in 2009 and she was a Fulbright Program scholar in the U.S. in 1986-87.

She was detained after December 20, 2016 in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt in Turkey in the summer of the same year. Following her detention she was formally arrested on suspicion of "being a member of an armed terror organisation" on the basis of alleged testimonies from a secret witness and an intelligence report. She was detained at Şakran prison, İzmir Province. Her arbitrary detention and judicial harassment were part of the FETÖ/PDY (Fethullahist Terror Organisation/ Parallel State Structure) Investigation launched in 2015 by İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and Organised Crime Bureau Prosecutor's Office into Gediz University, targeting several academics, following July's failed coup. The investigation was based on allegations that these academics are either members, or connected to terrorist organisations. Several human rights' organizations had asked for action to be taken. She was freed after 94 days of arrest, in late March, 2017.

Dr. Gözaydın was fully acquitted in 2018, however since her passport was nullified by the authorities, and have not been returned for a full three years, she had not been able to physically attend the Leibniz Professorship position that she was granted in 2018 at Leibzig University. She has been producing and presenting radio programs on law, politics and music (currently on Bach) at Açık Radyo (Open Radio) since 1995 where she was one of the founding members. She has been attending Femfikir debate programs where national and international politics are discussed by a group of female experts since it was launched in December 2017 at Medyascope, an independent internet medium based in Istanbul. Gözaydın lost her husband İskender Savaşır in June 2018 after a short episode of 4.5 months after a diagnosis of acute cancer.

She was awarded the 2017 University of Oslo's Human Rights Award, Lisl and Leo Eitinger Prize. Provided by Wikipedia