Can Dündar (* June 16, 1961 in Ankara) is a Turkish journalist, documentary filmmaker and book author. The columnist and former editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, who also works as a TV presenter, was accused of espionage and arrested in 2015; the prosecution demanded life imprisonment in the Cumhuriyet trial. On May 6, 2016, Dündar was found guilty of publishing state secrets. He was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison. Dündar appealed, the sentence did not become final. Instead, in 2020 Can Dündar was sentenced in absentia to more than 27 years in prison for alleged espionage and support of terrorism.
Can Dündar lives in Germany and continues to work as a journalist, including as editor-in-chief of the bilingual journalistic platform Özgürüz and as a columnist for Die Zeit. Dündar is a recipient of the Reporters Without Borders Human Rights Award, was honored as European Journalist of the Year in 2017 as part of the Prix Europa, and received the Metin Göktepe Journalism Award alongside Erdem Gül in 2016. He writes a regular column for the Maxim Gorki Theater newsletter.
