Büşra Ersanli
In June 2018, Ersanli was convicted on terrorism charges for her endorsement of a petition, organized by a group called Academics for Peace, criticizing military violence against the Kurds.… More
Sevan Nişanyan
Turkish Armenian writer Sevan Nişanyan was imprisoned in 2012 for a blog entry he wrote criticizing government attempts to ban criticism of the Prophet Muhammad. However, in July 2017,… More
Deniz Zarakolu
The son of human rights activists, Zarakolu was first arrested in 2002 for a speech he gave at his mother's funeral. In 2011, he was arrested again in a… More
Ayşe Düzkan
On June 11, 2019, Düzkan was released after serving 18 months in Bakırköy prison in Istanbul. She was originally imprisoned in January 2018 on terrorism charges for her work… More
Edip Polat
A Kurdish writer, Polat has been jailed three times for writing in support of Kurdish self-determination, which authorities deemed to be “separatist propaganda,” even though many of his works… More
Eşber Yağmurdereli
Blind human rights activist Yağmurdereli has spent nearly 20 years in prison on various charges related to comments about Türkiye's human rights abuses. Most recently, he was arrested in… More
Ayşe Nur Zarakolu
Founder of the Freedom to Publish Commission, Zarakolu was a pioneering female figure in Türkiye's literary world. A political essayist herself, she was arrested over 30 times for her… More
Rakhim Esenov
In February 2004, Esenov was charged with “inciting social, national, and religious hatred using the mass media” for statements made by characters in his novel, Ventsenosny Skitalets (The Crowned… More
Bülent Şık
A writer, food engineer, and environmental activist, Şık was indicted in 2018 after he wrote articles discussing the results of a government study of pollution. In 2019, he was… More
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