22 Facts About Garo Paylan

Garo Paylan is a politician from Turkey and one of the country's leading democracy activists.

Garo Paylan is a founding member of the Peoples' Democratic Party and since 2016 was the first Armenian in the history of the Republic of Turkey to publicly discuss the Armenian deportation of 1915 from the podium of the Turkish parliament.

Garo Paylan is recognized for his activism on human rights and minority rights in Turkey and has been the recipient of several awards, including the Grand Vermeil Medal and has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Garo Paylan was born in Turkey in 1972 to an Armenian family originally from Malatya.

Garo Paylan graduated from Istanbul University's School of Business and worked in family shoe manufacturing business.

Garo Paylan has served as a board member and coordinator of Armenian community schools in Istanbul, working on multi-lingual education projects.

Garo Paylan was among the participants that started the People's Democratic Congress in 2011 and in 2013 became a founding member of the Peoples' Democratic Party, which was established as a progressive coalition and supported a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.

Garo Paylan was re-elected in the snap elections of November 2015 and then as a Diyarbakir deputy in the Parliamentary Elections on 24 June 2018.

Garo Paylan was an active member of the parliament working on economic issues and minority rights.

In 2022, Garo Paylan went on a tour of eastern Turkey to identify and document churches and synagogues in the countryside facing destruction and ruin, including the Surp Bartholomes in Baskale, Van, dating back 1600 years.

Garo Paylan visited 20 sites in Turkey's Eastern countryside and identified hundreds of churches and synagogues that were either in ruins or facing ruin, including Diyarbakir's last synagogue, a 15th-century building in Cermik.

Garo Paylan made videos of these historic monuments to raise awareness and called on Ministry of Culture and Tourism to preserve the buildings.

Garo Paylan highlighted problems faced by Turkey's Christian community's religious and educational foundations, and in 2022 called on the government to allow self-governance the foundations by the members of the community.

From 2015 to 2023, Garo Paylan served as a member of the Turkish parliament's Budget Committee.

Garo Paylan scrutinized the government's budgetary choices and economic governance and was a frequent commentator on economic issues in Turkish media.

Garo Paylan was physically attacked on 2 May 2016 inside the Turkish parliament during a subcommittee meeting on constitutional reform and suffered minor injuries.

Garo Paylan said the attack was planned and that he was subject to racist slurs about his Armenian identity from deputies of the governing Justice and Development Party.

Garo Paylan said he was attacked because of his ethnic Armenian identity.

In 2022, a 2016 assassination plot against Garo Paylan was revealed by a former mafia lawyer.

Garo Paylan filed an official complaint and demanded a parliamentary inquiry.

Garo Paylan has been an advocate of human rights and has shown solidarity with Saturday Mothers, the group who has been meeting every Saturday in Galatasaray, Istanbul, since the 1990s to demand answers on the whereabouts of their "disappeared" relatives in Turkey.

On 1 November 2022, in Yerevan, Garo Paylan made an impromptu visit after meeting Armenia's prime minister Nikol Pashinyan earlier that day.