Immigration, Integration, and Islam


Insights from German Politicians with Immigrant Backgrounds
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
12 p.m – 2 p.m.
Georgetown University
McGhee Library (ICC 3rd Floor)

Cosponsored by the Institute for the Study of International Migration
Please RSVP to Alex Gee at arg29@georgetown.edu (202) 687-2258


A light lunch and refreshments will be served.

Filiz Demirel, Hamburg Altona City Council
Nebahat Guclu, Hamburg State Parliament
Dr. Zahra Mohammadzadeh, Bremen State Parliament
Ozcan Mutlu, Berlin State Parliament
Adil Oyan, City Council of Wasserburg am Inn (Bavaria)

Nebahat Güclü, a member of the Green Party for more than ten years, entered the Hamburg
State Parliament in 2004. She is the parliamentary group’s spokesperson for migration and
integration policy. Outside of Parliament, Güclü manages Interkulturelle Begegnungsstätte –
IKB, a consulting and education center for women from immigrant backgrounds in Hamburg.
She studied political science and German at the University of Hamburg and taught politics,
German, English and French after her studies. Born in Turkey, Güclü immigrated to Germany at
the age of five and obtained German citizenship in 1995.

Zahra Mohammadzadeh was elected to the Bremen State Parliament in 2007 as a member of
the Green Party. She is a member of several non-governmental organizations and committees
active in the fields of migration studies, public health, and integration policies, both on a regional
and national scale. Mohammadzadeh was born in 1956 in Tehran, Iran. She worked as a teacher
in the rural area of Iran until 1977 when she emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Mohammadzadeh received her doctorate in Germany in 1990 after studying human biology and
genetics. She held various posts within the office of the Bremen Senator of Health and Bremen
Public Health office. From 1993 until 2007, Mohammadzadeh worked at the Sub-Department of
Migration and Health as a scientist and, subsequently, as head of the sub-department. She
concurrently lectured at Bremen and Oldenburg Universities and published extensively on health
and migration issues, refugee health care, social politics concerning asylum seekers, intercultural
access to health care, among others.

Özcan Mutlu is a member of the Berlin State Parliament since 1999. He serves primarily as the
spokesperson for education and migration policy. A member of the Green Party since 1990,
Mutlu is the co-founder of the ImmiGrün, the immigration forum of the German Green Party. He
has also been historically active in the transatlantic arena. In 2005 he was a Marshall-Memorial-
Fellow of the German Marshall Fund and in 2000 was named German-American-Young-Leader
by the Atlantik-Brücke. During his graduate studies in electrical engineering, he spent time at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha. Born in Turkey in 1968, Mutlu has been a German citizen
since 1990.

Adil Oyan is member of the city council of Wasserburg am Inn (Bavaria) where he oversees the
budget of the municipal utility board. He serves concurrently as a member of the regional council
of Rosenheim and on the Bavarian Green Party Executive Committee. Oyan was the federal
chairman of ImmiGrün from 1999-2003. He gained transatlantic experience through the Young
Leaders Conference of the Atlantik Brücke in 2002 and through his work with Wasserburg’s
sister city, Vincennes, Indiana, where he is an honorary citizen. Born in Germany, Oyan attended
secondary and wood processing technical school in Turkey before furthering his education as a
nurse in Berlin and more recently in business administration. Oyan lives now with his family in
Bavaria.