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)…

On 16 May 2024, the Ankara 22^nd 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…