Zülfü Livaneli

Ömer Zülfü Livaneli (born 20 June 1946) is a Turkish musician, author, poet, and politician. Livaneli was imprisoned several times during the 1971 Turkish military memorandum because of his political views. As a result, he had to leave Turkey in 1972 and go into exile. He lived in Stockholm, Paris, Athens, and New York where he met and collaborated with artists and intellectuals such as Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, James Baldwin, and Peter Ustinov among others. Livaneli returned to Turkey in 1984.

His works and cultural and political activities and contributions to world peace were recognized by UNESCO in 1995 when he was appointed Goodwill Ambassador to UNESCO. He quit this UNESCO post in 2016 to protest the Turkish State's damage to the historic Kurdish Old Town of Diyarbakir. He served a term in the Turkish Parliament as well as in the Council of Europe. Provided by Wikipedia