Alkan Boudewijn de Beaumont Chaglar is a Canadian and British journalist. He used to be editor and columnist for the Turkish Cypriot weekly bilingual newspaper . He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the UK-based and a member of the . Alkan was educated at Leicester, Liège, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, with a background in languages, political science and history. He currently lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In his weekly column Alkan Boudewijn de Beaumont Chaglar writes with a passion for cross-cultural influences and diversity in multi-ethnic countries and the state of minority languages in the World. Coming from a Turkish Cypriot background, Alkan expressed an interest in the phenomena of Crypto-Christians and the issue of . On May 5, 2006 in Toplum Postasi Alkan wrote about the Latins and Maronites in Cyprus who proselytised to Islam during Ottoman rule. He argued that "The fact is a substantial number of today’s Muslim Turkish Cypriots have a Christian past, and are partly descended from those Venetian, Genovese and French families that had estates on the island who proselytised to Sunni Islam. "Cypriot historians from both sides of the divide tend to focus too much on our Greco-Turkish heritage, at the expense of objectivity, but Cyprus has and always will be a convergence of cultures". Alkan also writes about political events in Cyprus and Turkey. His articles have been published from time to time in the and the . Among his recent commentary in the are: , and . Often controversial, his most recent article in l is and . But his interests also extend to the Antipodes. Alkan wrote extensively about the threat of destruction of the New Guineanrainforest, and the tribes and rare species that they provide habitation for. In his article published on May 25, 2006, Alkan drew attention to the deforestation of the New Guinean rainforest together with the recent discoveries of birds of paradise in the North Western mountain region. He called for greater responsibility on the part of the Indonesian and Papua New Guinean governments and for a switch over to eco-tourism to replace the revenue derived from logging. Alkan also wrote extensively about or Spice Islands, the plight of the banishment of the "Acadians" and the formation of the Cajuns. Among his more recent articles are "Marooned on Tristan", Chastity and Austere living, and Ferocious Waterfalls and Guanos.
