Seyran Ateş

Ateş was born in Istanbul, Turkey, of a Turkish mother and a Kurdish father. Her family moved to West Berlin when she was six years old, part of a wave of immigration of Turks to Germany. She excelled at school, but felt oppressed by the cultural expectations within her family and immigrant community. She left home aged 17 to avoid an arranged marriage, and studied law at the Free University of Berlin.

While working at a women's centre in 1984, she was shot in the neck by a Turkish nationalist ("his exact motives unclear" even a generation later, according to the New York Times). The client she was counselling was killed by the attacker, and Ateş, during her long recuperation, decided to devote herself even more to helping Turkish-background women achieve their rights in Germany.[3] She has practiced law since 1997, specializing in criminal law and family law.[4]

Her views, highly critical of an immigrant Muslim society that is often more conservative than its counterpart in Turkey, have put her at risk.[5] Her German language book, Islam needs a sexual revolution, was scheduled for publication in Germany in 2009.[1] In an interview in January 2008 on National Public Radio, Ateş stated that she was in hiding, and would not be working on Muslim women's behalf publicly (including in court), due to the threats against her. In one particular incident, she and her client were attacked by a woman's husband in a German courthouse in front of onlookers who did nothing.[6]

Ateş opened the Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in 2017, located in a church. It is the only liberal mosque in Germany, that is, one where men and women pray together, and women can take the role of imam leading a prayer.[7] The Turkish religious authority and the Egyptian Fatwa Council at the Al-Azhar University have condemned her project, and she has received death threats.[8][9] The fatwa encompassed all present and future liberal mosques.[9]

According to Ateş, many liberal Muslims do not come forward due to threats and fear.[8]

In May 2018 she became an ambassador for the registered association intaktiv e.V., which opposes the circumcision of male children.[10][11] (see Circumcision controversies#Controversy in Germany.)

In 2005, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the project 1000 peacewomen.[12]

In March 2007 Ates was awarded a prize for defense of human rights by her alma mater.[3]

In October 2019 Ates won the University of Oslo’s Human Rights Award.[13]

• Bei Trennung: Tod, in: Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y. (ed.): Tod und Sterben in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Eine interdisziplinäre Auseinandersetzung (= Kulturwissenschaft interdisziplinär/Interdisciplinary Studies on Culture and Society, Vol. 3), Baden-Baden 2008
• Große Reise ins Feuer: Die Geschichte einer deutschen Türkin, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2006
• Individualität: Ich sein oder Ich haben?, in: Flensburger Hefte, Nr. 87, Flensburg 2005

• Seyran Ateş at perlentaucher.de – das Kulturmagazin (in German)
• Der Spiegel article
• Obsessed with Virginity – Female sexuality among western Muslims, a Deutsche Welle documentary which contains several interviews with Ateş concerning her life and work. (English with subtitles, 2017)
• Short biography from the Berlin International Literature Festival