Sinan Selen (born 1972,

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

) is a German constitutional lawyer, executive officer and the Vice-President of the German

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) at the state level, the fed ...

(BfV). Selen is the first high-ranking officer with a migrant background in the German intelligence services.

Early life and education

Selen was born in Istanbul to

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

parents. At the age of four, he and his parents moved to

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, where his parents were journalists at the German broadcaster

Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...

. In

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

he wrote for the students' journal. He was also involved as a paramedic with the St. John ambulance service. He studied European law at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

Career

In 2000 Selen began his career at the Federal Criminal Police Office where he was assigned to the security detail of

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German former politician and Lobbying, lobbyist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (S ...

and

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

Otto Schily Otto Georg Schily (born 20 July 1932) is a former Federal Minister of the Interior of Germany, his tenure was from 1998 to 2005, in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and wa ...

. After the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York on 11 September 2001 he searched for traces of evidence that the attackers left in Germany. In July 2006 he organized the hunt for two Lebanese terrorists who placed two bombs on regional trains at the Cologne main station. The attack failed as the bombs did not explode. After an extensive review of videos from surveillance cameras, one of the perpetrators was captured in the train station in Kiel. Afterwards, his accomplice in Lebanon surrendered as well. Selen entered the Ministry of the Interior in 2006, and initially his work was focused on the ban of the

Salafist The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a fundamentalist revival movement within Sunni Islam, originating in the late 19th century and influential in the Islamic world to this day. The name "''Salafiyya''" is a self-designation, claiming a retur ...

organization Millatu Ibrahim. He served as the head of the international counter-terrorism department until 2009. Between 2009 and 2012 he was assigned to the Headquarters of the Federal Police in the counter-piracy and human trafficking department. From 2012 onwards he worked in the Ministry of the Interior where in early 2016 he was given the task to coordinate between Turkey and Germany on terror-related issues. As a result, he and the diplomat Emily Haber often travelled to

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

, Turkey. In their conversations with the Turkish authorities, he refused to extradite members of the

Gülen movement The Gülen movement () or Hizmet movement () is an Islamist fraternal movement. It is a sub-sect of Sunni Islam based on a Nursian theological perspective as reflected in Fethullah Gülen's religious teachings. It is referred to by its membe ...

, and conversed through a translator in the

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

most of the time. From 2016 Selen was in charge of security for the travel agency TUI. In January 2019 he assumed the role of Vice President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), succeeding

Thomas Haldenwang Thomas Haldenwang (born 21 May 1960) is a German lawyer and was president of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (''Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz)'' from 2018 to 2024. Biography Haldenwang was born in 1960 in Wupp ...

who was appointed president of the BfV.

Reception

Selen's appointment to the vice-presidency of the BfV caused concerns across the political spectrum. The left was worried that he would cause difficulties for

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

sympathizers of the

Kurdistan Workers Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurdish militant political organization and armed gu ...

(PKK) and left-wing Turkish political activists, while the right accused him of being a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

, which he actually is not. The Greens welcomed his appointment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Selen, Sinan 1972 births Living people 21st-century German civil servants Turkish diaspora University of Cologne alumni German jurists Paramedics Jurists from Cologne Turkish diaspora in Germany