Emin Çölaşan
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Emin Çölaşan is a Turkish investigative journalist and was a daily columnist in the mass-circulation newspaper Hürriyet until his last article dated 14 August 2007[1] was not fancied by the Turkish media tycoon, Aydın Doğan, and fired on the same day. He is one of the most controversial names in Turkey's written press.
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[edit] Biography
Emin Çölaşan was born on 14 March 1942 in Ankara to a Cretan Turkish family. His father was a general director who had made his mark in the State Meteorological Service and his surname, which literally means desert strider, makes reference to a grandfather who had been exiled in profound Libya by the sultan Abdülhamid II. His maternal grandfather is Refik Şevket İnce, a comrade-in-arms of Atatürk with ministerial posts held in the 1920s and the 1950s, and who was born in Polichnitos near Mytilene in Midilli (Lesbos today). The island is a favorite vacation spot for Çölaşan himself.
Çölaşan finished his secondary studies in TED Ankara College and graduated from the Middle East Technical University with a degree in management studies. For a decade, he worked in various public institutions and he started his career in journalism in 1977 in the newspaper Milliyet and he shifted in 1985 to Hürriyet by starting to contribute as a regular columnist, an influential position carried on still. Çölaşan is the author of numerous books, focused primarily on malpractices within governmental and public circles in Turkey, as well as a party and/or instigator in frequent polemics with his divulgations and statements on various matters.
[edit] Points and controversies
Çölaşan was an extremely virulent critic of the late President of Turkey, Turgut Özal, targeted in two of his books; "Turgut'un Serüveni" (Turgut's adventure) and "Turgut Nereden Koşuyor?" (Where is Turgut running from?). As of 2007, the choice figures for his lasting enmity in these days are İ. Melih Gökçek, the AKP mayor of Ankara, and Mehmet Barlas, another well-known Turkish columnist. Çölaşan criticizes also the incumbent AKP government in Turkey.
His spouse, Tansel Çölaşan, is a member of the Turkish Council of State (Danıştay) and was an eye-witness and survivor of the May 2006 attack on the council's premises by Alparslan Arslan.
Çölaşan was fired on August 13, 2007 from the newspaper Hürriyet, he had been writing for 22 years for. The reasons of his dismissal is believed to be related to his controversial criticisms of the AKP government.
[edit] References
- ^ Hürriyet daily newspaper - Emin Çölaşan (14.08.2007)
