SOCIAL ACTIVISTS from Türkiye

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Turkish Social Activists of all time. This list of famous Turkish Social Activists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Turkish Social Activists.

1. Hrant Dink (1954 - 2007)

With an HPI of 62.88, Hrant Dink is the most famous Turkish Social Activist.  His biography has been translated into 46 different languages on wikipedia.

Hrant Dink (Armenian: Հրանդ Տինք; Western Armenian pronunciation: [ˈhɾantʰ ˈdiŋkʰ]; 15 September 1954 – 19 January 2007) was a Turkish-Armenian intellectual, editor-in-chief of Agos, journalist, and columnist. As editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, Dink was a prominent member of the Armenian minority in Turkey best known for advocating Turkish–Armenian reconciliation and human and minority rights in Turkey. He was often critical of both Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide and of the Armenian diaspora's campaign for its international recognition. Dink was prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness, while receiving numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists. Dink was assassinated in Istanbul on 19 January 2007 by Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist. Dink was shot three times in the head dying instantly. Photographs of the assassin flanked by smiling Turkish police and gendarmerie, posing with the killer side by side in front of the Turkish flag, surfaced. The photos sparked a scandal in Turkey, prompting a spate of investigations and the removal from office of those involved. Samast was later sentenced to 22 years in prison by a Turkish court. He was released on parole for "good behaviour" on 15 November 2023, after spending 16 years and 10 months in prison. At Dink's funeral, over one hundred thousand mourners marched in protest of the assassination, chanting, "We are all Armenians" and "We are all Hrant Dink". Criticism of Article 301 became increasingly vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for repeal. The 2007–2008 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.

2. Deniz Gezmiş (1947 - 1972)

With an HPI of 57.66, Deniz Gezmiş is the 2nd most famous Turkish Social Activist.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Deniz Gezmiş (Turkish pronunciation: [dˈɛniz ɡˈɛzmiʃ])(27 February 1947 – 6 May 1972) was a Turkish Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, student leader, and political activist in Turkey in the late 1960s. He was one of the founding members of the People's Liberation Army of Turkey (THKO). He was born to an inspector of primary education and syndicalist Cemil Gezmiş and a primary school teacher Mukaddes Gezmiş. He was educated in various Turkish cities. He spent most of his childhood in Sivas, where his father grew up. He graduated from high school in Istanbul where he first encountered left wing ideas. Gezmiş and companions are considered by some as "Turkey's Che Guevara and compañeros".

3. İbrahim Kaypakkaya (1949 - 1973)

With an HPI of 56.68, İbrahim Kaypakkaya is the 3rd most famous Turkish Social Activist.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

İbrahim Kaypakkaya (1949 – May 18, 1973) was a Turkish Maoist, who founded the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML). He is revered by many today as a symbol of resistance and as an aggregator of the ideas of other major leaders and thinkers in Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. Kaypakkaya was captured after being wounded in an engagement with the Turkish military in Tunceli Province in 1973, and executed in Diyarbakir Prison four months later.

4. Mari Beyleryan (1877 - 1915)

With an HPI of 54.45, Mari Beyleryan is the 4th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Mari Beyleryan (Armenian: Մառի Պեյլերյան; 23 March 1877 – 24 April 1915) was an Armenian feminist activist, writer, and public figure and a victim of the Armenian genocide.

5. Sakine Cansız (1958 - 2013)

With an HPI of 54.06, Sakine Cansız is the 5th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Sakine Cansız (Turkish pronunciation: [saːciˈne dʒanˈsɯz]; Kurdish: Sakîne Cansiz, IPA: [sɑːkiːnɛ dʒɑːnsɪz]; 1958 – 9 January 2013) was one of the co-founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party also recognised as a terrorist organisation by the EU and NATO countries. Australia and NZ have also designated it is a terrorist organisation. (PKK). A Kurdish activist in the 1980s, she was arrested and tortured by Turkish police. A close associate of Abdullah Öcalan and a senior member of the PKK, she was shot dead during the triple murder of Kurdish activists in Paris, France, on 9 January 2013, along with two other female Kurdish activists, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez.

6. Aslı Erdoğan (b. 1967)

With an HPI of 52.10, Aslı Erdoğan is the 6th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Aslı Erdoğan (born 8 March 1967) is a prize-winning Turkish writer, author, human rights activist, and columnist for Özgür Gündem and formerly for Radikal, ex political prisoner, particle physicist. Her second novel has been published in English, and eight books translated into twenty languages. Aslı Erdoğan is a writer of literature and author of eight books, novels, novellas, collections of poetic prose and essays, translated into twenty languages including English, French, German, and published by various publishers such as Actes Sud, Penguin Germany, The City Lights among others. She has worked as a columnist in various national and international papers, and she was arrested in 2016 for her collaboration with the pro-Kurdish newspaper Özgür Gündem. Aslı Erdoğan has received several prizes in literature, arts and human rights such as Simone de Beauvoir Prize or the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize. Her work has been adapted into theater and acted in Milan, Graz and Avignon, into classical ballet, radio, a short film and finally to opera. She is currently living in exile in Germany.

7. Eren Keskin (b. 1959)

With an HPI of 49.77, Eren Keskin is the 7th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Eren Keskin (born April 24, 1959 in Bursa, Turkey) is a Kurdish lawyer and human rights activist in Turkey. She is the vice-president of the Turkish Human Rights Association (İHD) and a former president of its Istanbul branch. She co-founded the project "Legal Aid For Women Who Were Raped Or Otherwise Sexually Abused by National Security Forces”, to expose abuses happening to women in Turkish prisons. She has been arrested, imprisoned, and the object of numerous lawsuits in relation to her human rights activities. In 1995 she was imprisoned for her activities and was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. In 2002 she was accused by Turkey's State Security of "aiding and abetting" the PKK because of her advocacy for Kurds to use their native language in Turkey. In March 2006 a Turkish court sentenced her to 10 months’ imprisonment for insulting the country's military. The sentence was then converted to a fine of 6000 New Turkish Liras, which Keskin refused to pay. From 2013 to 2016 Keskin was the editor in chief of the newspaper Özgür Gündem has been sentenced to a total of 7 years and 6 months together. In March 2018 she has been sentenced to 5 years and 3 months imprisonment for insulting the president and another 2 years and 3 months for "degrading Turkishness, the Republic, institutions and organs of the state" according to the Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. On 3 December 2021, Evrensel reported Keskin's home was raided by Turkish police.The raid was conducted to summon Keskin to account for a speech she delivered in Turkey’s eastern Dersim province in 2019.

8. Cenk Uygur (b. 1970)

With an HPI of 44.32, Cenk Uygur is the 8th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Cenk Kadir Uygur (; Turkish: [ˈdʒeɲc kaˈdiɾ ˈujɡuɾ]; born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American political commentator, media host, and attorney. He is the co-creator of The Young Turks, a progressive and left-wing populist sociopolitical news and commentary program. In 1996, Uygur worked briefly as an associate attorney. He launched and began hosting The Young Turks in 2002. In 2011, he worked briefly for MSNBC as a political commentator (he was replaced by Al Sharpton), and then from 2011 to 2013 he appeared on a weeknight commentary show on Current TV. In 2017, Uygur co-founded the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats. In 2020, Uygur was a candidate in both the special election as well as the regularly scheduled election for California's 25th congressional district. Some considered his candidacy controversial due to his past comments about women and minority groups, including the LGBTQ+ community, religious Jews, and Muslims, which some found offensive but which he said were taken out of context by the media. He lost both elections, placing fourth overall and second among Democrats after receiving six and seven percent of the vote, respectively. Uygur announced his candidacy in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries in October 2023 to pressure President Biden to withdraw, despite not being a natural-born U.S. citizen as required, claiming that the courts could overturn the requirement. Uygur suspended his campaign on March 6, 2024.

9. Hande Kader (1993 - 2016)

With an HPI of 39.29, Hande Kader is the 9th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Hande Kader (1993 – August 2016) was a politically active Turkish transgender woman. Kader was familiar to millions of Turks as a figurehead for the LGBT community after being photographed at the forefront of the resistance against police forces suppressing the 2015 Gay Pride event in Istanbul. In August 2016, she was reported missing by her flatmate when she failed to return home the following week. Her body was found raped, mutilated, and burnt by the roadside in the Zekeriyaköy up-market on 12 August 2016. Despite being badly mutilated, Kader's body was identified by prosthetics at the city morgue by Dengiler. Kader was employed in the sex industry as a sex worker, and was last seen getting into a client's car. She was 23 years old at the time of her death. The official cause of death has not yet been released. Reports indicate that after death her corpse was set on fire, possibly to avoid identification of the perpetrator(s). Following her death, there has been a public outcry and protests against the mistreatment of transgender people in Turkish society. Boğaziçi University LGBT Studies Student Club (BULGBTİ) announced a fellowship in honor of Hande Kader that will be given to a trans student at the university starting from 2017–2018 academic year. However, the office of the president later announced that the fellowship was not within their knowledge and reimbursed the donations.

10. Murder of Özgecan Aslan (1995 - 2015)

With an HPI of 37.08, Murder of Özgecan Aslan is the 10th most famous Turkish Social Activist.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Özgecan Aslan (22 October 1995 – 11 February 2015) was a Turkish university student who was murdered while resisting attempted rape on 11 February 2015 on a minibus in Mersin, Turkey. Her burnt body was discovered on 13 February. The murder was committed by minibus driver Ahmet Suphi Altındöken, and his father Necmettin Altındöken and friend Fatih Gökçe were accomplices in covering up the murder. All perpetrators were handed aggravated life sentences without the possibility of parole. The murder caused nationwide outrage and sparked protests across the country on the following days. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in several provinces, with some criticizing the government for its "insufficient response" and alleged normalization of the rape of non-conservative women. The protests were described as the first mass movement for Turkish women. It also provoked calls for reforms to combat violence against women more effectively. The case received great attention on social media and prompted women to share their experiences of harassment, with 16 February being dubbed as "Black Monday" due to protests. The murder was described as a catalyst for women to speak out about their long-withheld suffering, but The Guardian expected also a rift between women who defend silence and patriarchal status quo and those refusing to keep quiet.