Abdülhamit Bilici, a political exile from Turkey, will be speaking at Sinclair.
Bilici was the editor-in-chief of Zaman, the largest newspaper in Turkey which reaches a circulation of about one million people in the country.
Zaman was taken over by the Turkish government and journalists working there were either jailed or forced to become a voice of the government.
Bilici was able to flee and came to the United States after the seizure of his paper.
According to Bilici, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now controls 90 percent of all Turkish media.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Turkey accounts for nearly a third of all journalists jailed around the globe.
“As a victim of and witness to the process during which our democracy has been hijacked by a populist Islamist leader, I wish my country could turn back to democracy soon, and I urge Americans to never take your democratic rights for granted,” Bilici said in the Albuquerque Journal.
Bilici is speaking at Sinclair on Monday, May 1 at 2:30 p.m. in the green room on the third floor of Building 2.
Laina Yost
Managing Editor