Nurcan Kaya is a human rights defender, a lawyer, and a columnist. Three attempts were made to sue Kaya for three different offenses because of the same social media post from 2014. Finally, a lawsuit was filed for “Propagandizing for a terrorist organization” and the the court sentenced her to 1 year and 3 months in prison and deferred the announcement of the verdict. Kaya was among 52 people detained in 10 provinces on February 18th, 2025, as part of the Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) investigation by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. Nurcan Kaya is being tried without arrest with judicial control measures. Nurcan Kaya was born in Diyarbakır in 1977. She completed her legal education and internship here. While she was a trainee lawyer, she decided that she could advocate for rights through law and did her internship with Fethi Gümüş, one of the former presidents of Diyarbakır Bar Association. She also became a member of the Human Rights Association (İHD) where she volunteered as a translator. She took part in various commissions of Diyarbakir Bar Association. Later, she continued her career in non-governmental organizations.
The watershed moment that led her to become a human rights defender was the burning of Lice in 1993. Her elder sister was in Lice at the time of the military operation. She was shaken by this event that she witnessed as the child of a non-political, tradesman family who grew up in the city center.
She received her master's degree in International Human Rights Law in England. She worked as an expert in non-governmental organizations in London and then at the Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Center. She returned to London and started to work at Minority Rights Group International. Here, she carried out studies on the implementation of the EU's non-discrimination legislation in member states. She took part in projects related to Turkey and Cyprus over the prohibition of discrimination and minority rights and wrote reports.
In 2004, after the publication of the Minority Rights and Cultural Rights Report prepared by Prof. Dr. İbrahim Kaboğlu and Prof. Dr Baskin Oran on behalf of the Minority Rights and Cultural Rights Sub-Commission under the Prime Ministry Human Rights Advisory Board established on 12.04.2001, threats and pressures against the authors of the report and those working on minority rights increased. Over the course of several years, Minority Rights Group also prepared a report on the same subject. Yaşar Büyükanıt, then Chief of Staff, accused the London-based NGO of creating a minority in, and therefore, dividing Turkey, based on this yet unpublished report at a press conference. After this statement, Kaya started to receive threatening phone calls from Turkey due to her work on minorities. These calls lasted until the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer lawsuits.
Kaya returned to Turkey in 2009. She continued to work for international civil society. In 2018, she returned to Diyarbakır and started working as a lawyer. She is also a columnist and a consultant to civil society organizations. She sees advocacy as a tool for activism and practices it as such since she can closely follow the judicial processes aimed at civil society and rights defenders and announce them to the public through her writing.
Trial started with Syria operation tweet
Nurcan Kaya was detained at Istanbul Airport on October 27th, 2019, while she was about to leave for Tunisia. She was released the same day after she testified at the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan. She was asked about a tweet she shared in 2014 about an operation in Syria, and a travel ban was imposed during her interrogation. The ban was lifted at the end of January 2020.
Due to this tweet, an investigation was launched due to the allegation that Kaya " provoking the public to hatred and hostility “under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code. Resulted in a non-prosecution decision. Then, another investigation was launched based on the allegation that Kaya " degrading the state and its institutions " under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, but the Ministry of Justice would not allow for the pursuit of this investigation. Again, a few other tweets were added into her case alongside the abovementioned tweet, and an investigation was launched against Kaya for making propaganda of an organization, which turned into a lawsuit on October 5th, 2020. The tweet mentioned in the prosecution's opinion is: “Not only the Kurds but all people who live there are resisting in Kobane. Democrat Arabs are also resisting; and some of them were martyred.” This statement is a tweet written in quotation marks, which means it is a quote. This quote is from a speaker, who joined via video conference to a public panel on Kobane that Kaya attended in Istanbul in October 2014 as the Peace Process was going on.
The judgment hearing was held on September 27th, 2021, at the Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court. The court sentenced Kaya to 1 year and 3 months and deferred the announcement of the verdict.
Constitutional Court's decision on violation of rights
In March 2024, the Constitutional Court (AYM) ruled that the confiscation of Nurcan Kaya's passport within the scope of the judicial proceedings initiated in relation to her social media post stating "Not only the Kurds, but all the people living there are resisting in Kobane" was a violation of freedom of expression and imposed a fine of 13,500 TL to be paid.
A second investigation was conducted against her within the scope of the HDK operation
Within the scope of the investigation conducted by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office against HDK, large-scale operations were carried out in the morning hours of February 18th, 2025. Nuran Kaya was detained along with politicians, artists and journalists in house raids carried out in 10 provinces within the scope of the Istanbul based investigation. Kaya and 52 other detainees were banned from seeing their lawyers for 24 hours. This ban expired in the morning hours of February 19th, 2025, but the detention period was extended. This new investigation marks a new legal process against Kaya, following previous cases in which she was vindicated for violations of freedom of expression.
On February 21st, 13 people, including Nurcan Kaya, were charged with ‘not leaving the residence’, two were ordered to sign at the police station and banned from leaving the country, and 35 were referred to the Criminal Judgeship of Peace with a request for arrest. On February 22nd, 2025, 30 people were arrested and 13 people, including Nurcan Kaya, were sentenced to house arrest.
