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
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
Stella Nyanzi
Dr. Nyanzi was imprisoned on cybercrime charges in 2018 for writing a poem she posted online using President Museveni’s birth as a metaphor to criticize his repressive rule. She… More
Pınar Selek
A feminist writer, Selek has been prosecuted for over 20 years on false claims related to her involvement in a 1998 explosion in Istanbul. She currently lives in exile… More
Fikret Başkaya
Başkaya, an academic and author of several books on topics including socialism, politics, and corruption in Türkiye, was arrested in November 2017 on the basis of an article he… 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
Mümtaz’er Türköne
Police detained Türköne, a columnist for the daily Zaman, as part of a purge of suspected Gülenists after the failed July 2016 coup. Türköne was sentenced in 2018 to… More
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