By: Daniel McElroy

Kurdish journalist and artist, Zehra Doğan was released from prison in Turkey on February 24, 2019 after serving nearly two years of a sentence for disseminating “terrorist propaganda.”

Doğan, originally a journalist for Kurdish-language feminist news network Jinha, was arrested in July 2016 in the border city of Nusaybin where she was reporting. At her trial, for being a member of an illegal organization, Doğan argued that all activities of which she was accused were part of her official journalistic work and cited her credentials as a licensed journalist. That trial ended with no conviction and she was released from detention in December 2016.

During her first trial, authorities leaned heavily on Doğan’s activist work—paintings and social media posts—to build their case. In March 2017, Doğan was put on trial again, this time for a specific painting of the destruction of Nusaybin that she had posted to social media. She was sentenced to 2 years, 9 months, and 22 days in prison for disseminating “terrorist propaganda.”

Doğan’s prison sentence began in June 2017 at Diyarbakır Prison, and she was later transferred to Tarsus Women’s Prison, where she was held until her release this week.

While imprisoned, Doğan received much international attention to her case. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei publicly called for her release and British artist Banksy created a mural in New York City featuring a series of black tally marks on a white wall, one for each day of her imprisonment up to that point. One set of these marks featured Doğan’s face as if behind prison bars, and one of the bars she clutched was a pencil, alluding to the extreme repression of free speech and expression in Turkey under the Erdoğan regime. Thank you to all who participated in The Voice Project’s Free Zehra Doğan campaign, for using your voice to protect free expression around the globe.