Can DÜNDAR

Image Credit: Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC/WikkiCommons

Can Dündar, previously editor of the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, continued to appeal against a lengthy prison term and is on trial in absentia on other charges (see Case Lists 2014 – 2025). Dündar and his Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül were released in February 2016 after three months’ detention on terrorism and espionage charges, in connection with a May 2015 story published by Cumhuriyet featuring photos and videos of Turkish intelligence agency’s trucks allegedly carrying arms to Syria. Dündar’s appeal against his sentence to a combined total of 27 years and six months in prison imposed in 2020 in absentia process was ongoing at the end of the year.  

Dündar is also accused of ‘attempting to overthrow the government’ in the Gezi Park trial case (see Mehmet Osman Kavala above). Proceedings were ongoing as of 31 December 2025.  

Dündar is also facing several years in prison in relation to the ‘Editors Watch’ solidarity action with Özgür Gündem daily and for posting a video about arms shipments to Islamist groups in Türkiye on his news website Özgürüz (We are free) on 1 March 2017. Hearings continued throughout 2025; proceedings were ongoing at the end of the year.  

In December 2022, Dündar revealed he had been added to a database published by Türkiye’s Ministry of Interior that identifies alleged terrorists and offers rewards for their capture. Since October 2024, the social media platform X has blocked access to Dündar’s account in relation to the death of USA-based cleric Fethullah Gülen (whom Türkiye blamed for orchestrating a failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016).  

Can Dündar is the author of We Are Arrested: A Journalist’s Notes from a Turkish Prison, which the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain turned into a play in 2018. He currently resides in Germany, where he launched Özgürüz. His latest book Ich traf meinen Mörder (I Met My Killer) was published in Germany in 2025.