Ali Duran Topuz is hoofdredacteur van internetmedium Gazete Duvar (‘Muurkrant’).

“I was born in August 1967 in Sivas Zara, as a boy of Kurdish Alevi. My date of birth in the official documents was shown as  February 4, 1966. This was a result of the biopolitict conflict between the state and the society. The same conflict occured in my name. My family has given me the name of Ali Duran but the population registry office wrote only “Ali” to the registry because of its onomastic characteristics indicating the identity of Alevis in this region. Changing the date of birth was a common practice in the whole society although the names indicating especially Kurdish Alevi identity have been perceived as a problem until the middle of 2000s. While Kurdish names were strictly forbidden, names pointing to Alevism were written according to the arbitrary attitudes of registry officers. I use both names in publications.

My family immigrated to Istanbul in 1976. I went to Talimhane Primary School for 2 years in the Çengelköy district of Üsküdar and learnt Turkish, then I graduated as an external student. I studied at Beylerbeyi High School in the same district and in the Faculty of Law at Istanbul University. I worked as a lawyer for several years (from 1991 to 1994 with my internship).

I am currently working as an active journalist since 1994, with being registered to the Istanbul Bar Association. I have spent 17 years of my working life in the Radikal newspaper, but I have prepared and organized programs on various radio and television.

I have also poetry, stories and literary criticisms published in literary journals since the 1990s, I have written articles on minority rights and current political affairs, and I continue to write. (I will  publish a Kurdish story book in September 2018, which its writing of the book is done and the editorial preparations are ongoing.) I am the founding editor of the Gazete Duvar, which was started to publish on the internet on August 8, 2016. I am still the editor-in-chief of this newspaper. This newspaper is an institution committed to publishing in accordance with universal journalism norms.”

Meer over Ali Duran Topuz:

– Turkse journalisten beginnen digitale muurkrant, De Groene Amsterdammer.