Emine Bozkurt

Emine Bozkurt was the Chair of the Board at International IDEA from June 2018 to December 2020.

As a Member of the European Parliament representing the Netherlands for 10 years until July 2014, Emine Bozkurt worked on migration and asylum policies and civil rights, including women’s rights in Turkey, partly in view of its EU candidate membership. A passionate advocate of human rights, she was appointed chairperson of the cross party Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup of the European Parliament.

She organized many conferences concerning civil rights, the fight against racism and extreme-right, hate-crimes. She has actively engage members of the minority communities in Europe in those debates. As co-chair of the European Diversity and Integration Network, she lead fact-finding missions to local Muslim communities in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Spain to listen to the experiences of Muslim communities in Europe to make recommendations to the leadership of the Party of European Socialists.

Being a leading MEP on sport, she managed right before the World Cup in 2006 to get an influential resolution against racism in football voted by the European Parliament. Together with FC Barcelona, UNESCO, local authorities and young people, Bozkurt organized a project about youth and the fight against racism.

In 2014 she was appointed by His Majesty the King of the Netherlands Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau.