İrfan Aktan

İrfan Aktan was selected for the 2022 European Press Prize shortlist with Loosening the stake.

İrfan Aktan was born in 1981 in Hakkâri. He graduated from the Department of Journalism at the Ankara University Faculty of Communication in 2003. For his graduation project, with a group of friends, he shot two documentaries on Iraqi and Iranian refugees, titled, “Ömer Eve Gel/Ömer Come Home” and “Arka Bahçenin İnsanları/The People of the Backyard”. He began his journalistic career while still a student, in the year 2000, at www. bianet.org . He then worked at Express magazine, BirGün newspaper, the magazines Yeni Aktüel, Newsweek Türkiye and Nokta, Radikal newspaper, birdirbir.org and zete.com respectively. In the year 2010 he worked as the Ankara bureau chief of IMC TV. From 2016 to 2021, he wrote weekly articles and published interviews at Gazete Duvar. He continues to regularly contribute to Express magazine, www.birartibir.org and www. artigercek.com Aktan’s articles have been included in many books, and he has two books of his own, Nazê and Zehir ve Panzehir: Kürt Sorunu [The Poison and the Antidote: The Kurdish Issue]. His main fields of interest include the Kurdish issue, refugees, disadvantaged groups, racist-discriminatory policies, press freedom and the freedom of expression.