Preceded by Position established Name Mumtaz Soysal Prime Minister Tansu Ciller | Preceded by Hikmet Cetin Succeeded by Murat Karayalcin Nationality Turkish | |
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Political party Independent Republican Party (BCP) Party Independent Republican Party Children Defne Soysal, Funda Soysal People also search for Sevgi Soysal, Defne Soysal, Korkut Nutku, Funda Soysal, Ozdemir Nutku | ||
Osman Mümtaz Soysal (born September 15, 1929) is a Turkish professor of constitutional law, political scientist, Kemalist politician, human rights activist, ex-prisoner of conscience, senior advisor, columnist and author.
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Mümtaz Soysal served as the 30th Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1994. He was a Member of Parliament at Constituent Assembly in 1961 and Grand National Assembly from 1991 to 1999.
He actively contributed to constitutions of Turkey (1961) and the DR Congo (2006). He was constitutional advisor of the President of Northern Cyprus Rauf Denktaş.
He elected to Amnesty International International Executive Committee in September 1974 as the first Turkish and the first ex-prisoner of conscience member ever. He served as the vice-chairman of Amnesty International from 1976 to 1978. He became the first winner of the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 1978.
As a hardline Kemalist statist, Mümtaz Soysal persistently worked against privatisation policies and initiatives of Turkish governments, especially in the 1990s. He founded Center for Development of Public Enterprise in April 1994, and the organisation was converted to a foundation in 1996.
Mümtaz Soysal was members of the Republican People's Party, the Social Democratic Populist Party and the Democratic Left Party. In 2002, he founded the Independent Republican Party with many academics and served as the first chairman of the party from 2002 to 2014.
M mtaz soysal sinirlendiren protesto
Career
He was born on 15 September 1929 in Zonguldak, Turkey to Osman Muhtar, a naval kol aghassi and his wife Samiye. He was a Professor of Constitutional Law at Ankara University for many years. He is also one of the founders of Yön, a political magazine founded in 1961. After the 1971 Turkish coup d'état he was detained for some months, and was listed as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. In 1974, he became the first former prisoner of conscience to serve on the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.
Personal life
He was married to Sevgi Soysal (till her death in 1976). Later he married with Sevinç Karasapan Soysal. He has two daughters, Defne (1973) and Funda (1975) and two step-sons.
