Emin Çölaşan is a Turkish investigative journalist and was a daily columnist in the mass-circulation newspaper Hürriyet until his last article dated 14 August 2007. He now writes a daily column for the Sözcü newspaper. He is one of the most controversial names in Turkey's written press.

Biography

Emin Çölaşan was born on 14 March 1942 in Ankara to a Cretan Turkish family. His father was a general director who had made his mark in the State Meteorological Service and his surname, which literally means desert strider, makes reference to a grandfather who had been exiled in profound Libya by the sultan Abdülhamid II. His maternal grandfather is Refik Şevket İnce, a comrade-in-arms of Atatürk with ministerial posts held in the 1920s and the 1950s, and who was born in Polichnitos near Mytilene in Midilli (Lesbos today). The island is a favorite vacation spot for Çölaşan himself.

Çölaşan finished his secondary studies in TED Ankara College and graduated from the Middle East Technical University with a degree in management studies. For a decade, he worked in various public institutions and he started his career in journalism in 1977 in the newspaper Milliyet and he shifted in 1985 to Hürriyet by starting to contribute as a regular columnist, an influential position carried on still. Çölaşan is the author of numerous books, focused primarily on malpractices within governmental and public circles in Turkey, as well as a party and/or instigator in frequent polemics with his divulgations and statements on various matters.

His spouse, Tansel Çölaşan, is chief advocate of the Turkish Council of State (Danıştay) and was an eye-witness and survivor of the May 2006 attack on the council's premises by Alparslan Arslan.

Controversies

Çölaşan was a virulent critic of the late President of Turkey, Turgut Özal, targeted in two of his books; "Turgut'un Serüveni" (Turgut's adventure) and "Turgut Nereden Koşuyor?" (Where is Turgut running from?). As of 2007, the choice figures for his lasting enmity are Mehmet Barlas, another well-known Turkish columnist, and İ. Melih Gökçek, the AKP mayor of Ankara. Çölaşan made a point of pronouncing the mayor's name in full, in reference to tr:ibne; a practice for which he was fined 40000 Lira. The two finally appeared on a televised debate, which received a warning from the state censorship board for indecency. Çölaşan also criticized the incumbent AKP government, which is believed to the reason behind his being his fired from the newspaper Hürriyet on August 13, 2007, after 22 years of service.

References

External links

• Archive of articles by Emin Çölaşan