Dr. Aykan Erdemir is the Director of International Affairs Research at Anti-Defamation League. He is a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011-2015) who served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet. As an outspoken defender of pluralism, minority rights, and religious freedoms in Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond, Dr. Erdemir has been at the forefront of the struggle against violent extremism, religious persecution, hate crimes, and hate speech. He is a founding and steering committee member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, and a drafter of and signatory to the Oslo Charter for Freedom of Religion or Belief (2014) as well as a signatory legislator to the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism. He earlier served as the Senior Director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy, and as a member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities. Dr. Erdemir was awarded the Stefanus Prize for Religious Freedom in 2016 and the First Freedom Award of the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) in 2019 in recognition of his advocacy for minority rights and religious freedoms.