Pınar Selek

Pınar Selek (; born October 8, 1971) is a Turkish sociologist, feminist, and author. She is known for her work on the rights of vulnerable communities in Turkey, including women, the poor, street children, sexual minorities, and Kurdish communities, and for the ensuing political persecution. She is the author of several books published in Turkish, German, and French, and is one of the founding editors of Amargi, a Turkish feminist journal. She currently resides in France where she obtained academic exile in Strasbourg then Nice under the French PAUSE program. She later obtained a permanent assistant professor position in sociology at Université Côte d'Azur, with the Migrations and Society Research Unit. She became a French citizen in 2017.

Selek has been prosecuted since 1998 in Turkey, in an affair which has attempted to tie her to an explosion that occurred at the Spice Bazaar, Istanbul in 1998, despite police and expert reports showing that the explosion was caused by a gas leak. Tried and acquitted of all charges on four occasions (in 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014), her most recent acquittal was amended on June 21, 2022, by the Supreme Court of Turkey which reversed the court decision and sentenced her to life in prison before a retrial. The retrial was set for March 31, 2023 then pushed back to September 29, 2023, then to June 28, 2024.

She became an "ambassador" for Prison Insider, an information platform on conditions of detention around the world, in 2024. In 2014 she obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Strasbourg. The arrest is widely considered to have been motivated by her contact with Kurds as part of her academic research. Her work was confiscated, and she refused to name the individuals she had interviewed during the course of her research. Another suspect, Abdülmecit Öztürk, was arrested two weeks after Selek, and confessed to police that the two had carried out the bombing together, although he later recanted his statement and claimed that he had been tortured in police custody. Öztürk was later acquitted of all charges, and his statement against Selek was ruled as inadmissible.

After spending two and a half years in prison, during which time she was subject to torture and ill-treatment, issued reports concluding that the explosion had been caused by the accidental ignition of a gas cylinder. Three expert witnesses assigned by the court also testified that the explosion was caused by a gas leak. Nonetheless, the court decided on November 22, 2012, to amend its own prior acquittal decisions and reopen her trial, a move which her defense lawyers labeled as "unprecedented in Turkish legal history."

On January 24, 2013, after just over an hour of deliberation, the court sentenced her to life in prison for the 1998 spice bazaar bombing. While Selek was tried in absentia, more than 30 nongovernmental organizations and political party representatives from France, Germany, Italy, and Austria attended the hearings, and nearly 150 people protested during the trial.

After a fourth acquittal on December 19, 2014, the Supreme Court of Turkey reversed the acquittal on June 21, 2022, immediately sentencing Pinar Selek to life in prison. The retrial was set for March 31, 2023, and was attended by a delegation of a hundred lawyers, politicians, academics and representatives of non-governmental organizations, from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway and Turkey. After the hearing - in which lawyers contested the illegal procedure of the Supreme Court cancelling an acquittal and handing down a new sentence without new evidence or trial - a new trial date was set for September 29, 2023. In similar circumstances with similar international support, this and the consecutive hearings resulted in adjournments : for June 28, 2024, and then for February 7, 2025.

Support from academic institutions and international organizations Pınar Selek (center) at a press conference in Strasbourg on January 25, 2013. The banner reads: "Freedom for research. Freedom for Pinar!!!" Numerous international organizations have voiced solidarity with Selek, including Amnesty International, the Human Rights League and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). The Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Council and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) have called on Turkish authorities to end the 14-year "judicial harassment" of Selek, as this seems " to merely aim at sanctioning her for her legitimate exercise of the freedom of opinion and expression." PEN International has expressed outrage and concern and argued that the judicial campaign against Selek seeks to penalize her for her "long standing support for and work on minority groups in Turkey." Turkish journalist Cengiz Çandar called the January 2013 ruling a "travesty" and a "disgraceful judgment." In a letter addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom asserted that: "all of the circumstances attendant to her case suggest that Selek has been on trial for the last fourteen years for her research on the PKK in violation of her right to academic freedom." The French Sociological Association has issued statements of support spanning a decade, while other supporting scientific organizations include the French Association des sociologues enseignants du supérieur (ASES), the French Political Science Association, or the Committee of Concerned Scientists, who have condemned the "lack of due process and free expression for academics".

Alain Beretz, president of the University of Strasbourg, has espoused the university's solidarity with Selek, calling her life imprisonment conviction "unjust and revolting." Université Côte d'Azur has publicly stated its "unwavering support" for Selek and the values and academic freedoms her case represents. A collective of academics from France have called her sentencing an attack on the independence of social sciences.

At press conferences following each verdict, Selek has vowed to continue her fight for justice.

Publications In 1996 she translated Ya Basta into Turkish. as well as two children's books. Recent publications include Le chaudron militaire turc (2023), which analyzes the co-production of masculinity and nationalism through obligatory military service and institutionalised relations to violence.