Sebnem Korur Fincanci
We feel the plight of all oppressed people in our hearts but we have failed to dress their wounds.
Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanci is a human rights defender and the President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey. The Foundation is involved into the documentation of the cases of torture, rehabilitation of its vicitms and provison of legal assistance to them. Sebnem Korur Fincanci is one of the founding members of the Forensic Doctors’ Association and has played the major role in the development of the United Nations reference standards on the investigation and documentation of the cases of torture, the Istanbul Protocol. She has conducted forensic investigations, at times undercover, to expose torture in multiple countries, and in 2014 she received the International Hrant Dink Award.
Human rights defenders in Turkey have been subjected to harassment, threats, surveillance, violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly, judicial harassment including criminal prosecution, violent attacks, prolonged arbitrary detention and ill-treatment. They become target for their work on denouncing impunity for serious human rights violations, defending sexual rights, investigating on ultra-nationalist networks, advocating for labour rights or defending the right to conscientious objection.
