Board Members - Mülteci-Der

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The Board of Directors of the Association for Solidarity with Refugees (Mülteci-Der) was elected by the members at the association’s 12. General Assembly held in 2026. The new board will serve for the 2026–2028 term.

Our board members are people with many years of field, advocacy and civil society experience in refugee rights, human rights, law and social work. The board is responsible for setting the association’s strategic direction, overseeing its financial and administrative operations, and ensuring the sustainability of rights-based work that strengthens refugees’, asylum seekers’ and migrants’ access to rights and services.

For the 2026–2028 term, the board has adopted the following priorities: improving the quality of direct legal and social support services; strengthening monitoring, reporting and advocacy work; consolidating an institutional structure that upholds gender equality; and developing the association’s financial and institutional sustainability.

Cansu Akbaş Demirel

She completed her undergraduate degree in the Department of International Relations at Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Sciences. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees from the Department of International Relations at Ege University, where she worked as a research assistant between 2011 and 2017. During her master’s studies she carried out research at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). Her doctoral thesis is titled “Civil Society Actors Working in the Field of Migration and Asylum in Turkey: A Network Approach”. Between 2017 and 2021 she worked at the HRFT Academy, established within the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), and she has been a visiting researcher at the University of Neuchâtel. She has conducted field research on refugees in Turkey, migration and human rights, refugees’ access to rights, and the role of civil society, and has published work in this field. She currently works as a research assistant (PhD) in the Department of International Relations at Ege University. She began working with our association as a volunteer in 2009. Having served on the board in various terms, she was elected chair of the board in March 2026

Şeyda Akpınar

She graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Law in 2020. After completing her legal traineeship, she was admitted to the Ankara Bar Association in 2021. From 2022 onwards she worked at various associations in the field of migration and human rights. She has been a member of Mülteci-Der’s Board of Directors since 2024, and served as the association’s Acting General Coordinator between 2024 and 2025. Alongside her work on migration within civil society, she also has experience in gender, LGBTI+ rights, culture and the arts, and peace work.

Çisem Aylanç Gökmen

She graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Law in 2016 and completed a master’s degree in European Union Law at Dokuz Eylül University’s Institute of Social Sciences in 2022. She has practised law in İzmir since 2017. Since 2019 she has taken part in various activities of the İzmir Bar Association’s migration and asylum commission and its urban and environmental commission. She has attended training in refugee law and environmental law, acting as a trainer or facilitator in some of these, and has taken part in collective and strategic litigation work in these fields. She served on Mülteci-Der’s Board of Directors in the 2020–2022 and 2022–2024 terms, and has served on the board again since February 2026. She continues her advocacy work in the fields of migration and asylum, the environment and the protection of cultural heritage.

Eda Bekçi

She has practised as an independent lawyer in İzmir since 2002. A member of the Association for Solidarity with Refugees, she served two terms as chair of the Board of Directors between 2014 and 2018. She is a member of the İzmir Bar Association’s migration and asylum commission and a trainer in its continuing professional education programme and traineeship training centre; she is also a member of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations’ (TBB) migration and asylum commission, and a trainer on the Council of Europe HELP programme and in human rights law through TBB–EU cooperation. She has provided consultancy, training, conference contributions and project support to Kaos GL, Mülteci-Der, the Human Rights Association (İHD), Amnesty International and many other civil society organisations and platforms. She continues to deliver professional training on migration and asylum at bar associations across Turkey. She currently serves as İzmir Bar Association delegate to the Union of Turkish Bar Associations.

Hüseyin Gövercin

Gizem Metindağ

Orçun Ulusoy

He graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Law in İzmir and practised as a lawyer in human rights cases concerning asylum and migration. Alongside the Association for Solidarity with Refugees, he is a founding member of Kayiki, a network of human rights activists, researchers and lawyers in Turkey and Greece. Since 2012 he has worked as a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He completed a master’s degree in international security policy and law at VU Amsterdam and a PhD in migration law at the same university. He currently works on various research projects focusing on migrant deaths at borders, European Union and Turkish migration policy, and the externalisation of EU migration policy.