Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish author and a regular columnist with the independent Turkish news site, Ahval. She was detained in 2018 because of her human rights work, had her home raided in 2019 for her reporting on Syria and was arrested again in 2020 for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. In 2017 Baysal was awarded the “Brave Women Journalists Award” presented by the Italian Women Journalists Association. In 2018 she was named Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders.