Professor Şebnem Korur FINCANCI
Prominent academic, forensic scientist, and leading human rights defender, Professor Şebnem Korur Fincancı remained on trial throughout 2024 in relation to restrained comments made in 2022 during a live interview regarding the possible use of chemical weapons by Türkiye’s armed forces against members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)…
Yavuz EKINCI
Kurdish writer Yavuz Ekinci faces up to seven and a half years in prison on bogus terrorism propaganda grounds for his book Rüyası Bölünenler (Dream Divided). His trial opened in Istanbul in September 2024…
Can DÜNDAR
Can Dündar, then editor of the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, continues to appeal against a lengthy prison term and is on trial on other charges (see Case Lists 2014 – 2023/2024). Dündar was detained on 26 November 2015 alongside his Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül on terrorism and espionage charges, in connection with a May 2015 story published by…
Gulgeç AKDENIZ (pen name Gulgeş DERYASPÎ)
Writer and Kurdish PEN member Gulgeç Akdeniz – pen name Gulgeş Deryaspî – remained on trial at the end of the year, appealing a six-year three-month prison term imposed after conviction on 3 December 2020 of ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ under Article 314/2 of Türkiye’s Penal Code. She denies any wrongdoing…
Mehmet Osman KAVALA
Publisher, civil and cultural rights activist, and philanthropist Osman Kavala continues to serve a life sentence upheld on 28 September 2023 by Türkiye’s Court of Cassation. The court also upheld 18-year prison sentences against his co-defendants Çiğdem Mater, Can Atalay, Mine Özerden and Tayfun Kahraman (three other defendants – Mücella Yapıcı, Hakan Altınay and Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi – were acquitted in February 2025)…
Selahattin DEMIRTAŞ
On 16 May 2024, the Ankara 22nd Heavy Penal Court found writer and former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, guilty of ‘aiding in undermining the unity and integrity of the state’, ‘incitement to commit a crime’ and ‘making terrorist propaganda’, sentencing him to a combined total of 42 years in prison…
Hrant DINK
Impunity continues for the murder of Hrant Dink, author and editor of the Armenian language magazine Agos, killed outside his office in Istanbul on 19 January 2007. In July 2011, 17-year-old Ogün Samast was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months in prison for Dink’s murder…
Andrej HNIOT
Andrej Hniot, a Belarusian filmmaker, journalist, and activist, was arrested upon his arrival in Belgrade on 30 October 2023, on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant issued at the request of the Belarusian authorities on alleged charges of tax evasion (Article 243.2 of the Belarusian Criminal Code), which carries up to seven years in prison…
Vladimir ARSENIJEVIĆ & other staff of KROKODIL
On 20 September 2024 at around 4pm, a group of Russian-speaking men wearing clothes with far-right Serbian imagery, entered the premises of the KROKODIL Centre for Contemporary Literature in Belgrade, took down a Ukrainian flag and intimidated staff. KROKODIL, which notably set up the first Ukrainian library in Serbia…
Jovo BAKIĆ
Writer and academic Jovo Bakić continued to face threats and harassment by government officials and pro-government social media trolls in 2024, with Minister for Family Care and Demography Milica Đurđević notably branding him ‘extremist’. Bakić further told PEN International he received several online messages threatening him and his family during the year…
Marko VIDOJKOVIĆ
Death threats against writer and journalist Marko Vidojković persisted in 2024. Vidojković notably spoke in March 2024 about his plight and the broader situation in Serbia at an online panel event marking the launch of PEN International’s 2023/2024 Case List of persecuted writers. ..
Dinko GRUHONJIĆ
Dinko Gruhonjić, a journalist, writer, and lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy of Novi Sad in Vojvodina, northern Serbia, has been facing increased harassment, smears, and death threats since 14 March 2024, following the publication of an edited video in which…
Slavko ĆURUVIJA
On 2 February 2024, the Belgrade Court of Appeals announced that it had acquitted four former Serbian state security officers who had already been twice convicted of the murder of journalist, editor, and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, shot and killed outside his house in…
Yuri Alexeyevich DMITRIEV
Historian, author and head of the Karelian branch of the human rights centre Memorial, north-western Russia, Yuri Dmitriev continues to serve a 15-year prison sentence in a high-security penal colony after conviction of alleged sexual offences his supporters…
Yevgenia BERKOVICH & Svetlana PETRIYCHUK
Theatre director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk are each serving lengthy prison sentences handed down by a military court in Moscow in July 2024, on fabricated ‘terrorism’ grounds…
William NYGAARD
Following campaigning by PEN Norway and PEN International, publisher William Nygaard’s legal team successfully appealed against the decision to close the investigation into the 1993 attempted murder of Nygaard, with the Norwegian authorities announcing on 24 July 2024 that the investigation would resume. ..
Boban BATRIĆEVIĆ
In March 2024, a court in Podgorica dropped all charges and dismissed the case against academic, writer, and vice president of the Montenegrin PEN Centre Boban Batrićević. Batrićević had faced up to 60 days in prison or a fine under Article 19 of Montenegro’s National Law on Public Order and Peace, which prohibits national…
Andrej NIKOLAIDIS
In March 2024, an effigy of prominent writer, journalist and PEN member Andrej Nikolaidis, was burnt at a carnival in Herceg Novi, southwestern Montenegro. The incident was the latest in a series of harassment and smears against Nikolaidis, on account of his views critical of the Montenegrin authorities (see Case List 2022)…
