Berkley Center

Ziya Meral is a Turkish Christian writer, researcher, and a PhD candidate in Politics at the University of Cambridge; he is also a research associate with the Foreign Policy Centre. Meral is a 2010-2011 Joseph Crapa Fellow at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and conducting a year-long research project on identifying patterns of ethno-religious violence. Meral has an extensive research and human rights advocacy record across the Middle East on religion and minority issues, and he regularly publishes academic essays and op-eds on Middle East and Turkish politics in British and international media. He has delivered lectures and briefings at the US Congress, US Department of State, and British Parliament and regularly briefed UK, US, EU, and UN officials. Meral holds a BA from Brunel University, MDiv from the International School of Theology (Philippines), and MSc in sociology from the London School of Economics.