Pelin Ünker

Pelin Ünker is a Turkish journalist and a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In the late 2010s she investigated the Turkish dimension of the Paradise Papers affair.

She has worked for the Cumhuriyet newspaper since late 2000s and reported on the Panama Papers in 2016, but she left her job in Cumhuriyet in the aftermath of her reporting on Paradise Papers affairs in Turkey, which also led to a defamation suit against her, criticized by several international organizations as an attack on freedom of speech and press. Cumhuriyet has since shifted its stance to align more closely with the government, with a number of its journalists sued or resigning, and its former chief editor, Can Dündar, fleeing the country.

Paradise Papers lawsuits

The sons of Turkey's prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, described as "close friends" of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are listed in the papers as having business interests in tax havens. One of the companies shared an address with a company that won a $7 million government contract. sued journalist Pelin Ünker and the newspaper Cumhuriyet in 2018 after they published the story describing their involvement. In January 2019 a Turkish court sentenced Ünker to thirteen months in jail for "defamation and insult of public official", and separately fined the newspaper for "insult". The ICIJ's director, Gerard Ryle, criticized the sentence as an attack on free speech. Her sentencing has also been criticized by others, including the Netherlands Helsinki Committee

The Netherlands Helsinki Committee concluded that "Because of her reporting on tax evasion schemes of Turkey's powerful, it is no longer possible for Ünker to work in Turkish mainstream media", stressing the problems surrounding freedom of the press issues in Turkey. In April 2019 the Investigative Reporters and Editors awarded her the Don Bolles Medal for courage.

Pulitzer finalist for the FinCEN Files

In 2020, thousands of documents from the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have been leaked to BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Pelin Ünker worked on the FinCEN Files as part of the ICIJ team. The serie was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the International Reporting category in 2021.