ŞEBNEM KORUR FİNCANCI was born in 1959 in Istanbul. After graduating from the Cerrahpaşa University Medical Faculty, she received specialization training in Forensic Medicine. From 1987 to 1990 she studied Classical Archaeology at the Istanbul University Faculty of Literature. She was a founding member of the Society of Forensic Medicine Specialists founded in 1992; and served as the Society’s chairperson from 1993 to 1996. She is also a founding member of the Turkish Penal Law Association.
She dedicated her professional career to the struggle against torture, and became a pioneer in this field in Turkey. In the 1990s, when torture was prevalent in Turkey and covered up by authorities, she was subjected to the oppression and obstructions of the state as she wrote articles on medical ethics and penned reports documenting torture. After her report on the defendants in the court case involving the assassination of journalist Uğur Mumcu she declared that she had been threatened by official authorities; and a secret official document demanding her dismissal was revealed. During Mehmet Ağar’s term as Minister of Justice, she carried out an active struggle to prevent the Institute of Forensic Medicine from becoming a state institution where documents were systematically destroyed as in the Susurluk case.
In 1997, she became the Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Istanbul University Medical Faculty. In 2004, she was removed from her position as Head of Department; in 2005 she was reinstated by an Administrative Court decree and the decision of the Higher Education Council. She was removed several times from her additional position as Chairperson of the Institute of Forensic Medicine Specialty Board; she returned to her position after winning lawsuits.
In 1996, she took part in postmortems from mass graves in the Kalesija region of Bosnia as member of the PHR team on behalf of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal. In 1999, she was among the authors of the Istanbul Protocol document recognized by the United Nations as a standard set of international guidelines for the assessment of torture; she later also lectured in various countries on the implementation of the protocol. In 2000, she took part in the international program organized by Physicians for Human Rights in South Africa, and in 2002, in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Sexual Violence Against Women Research and Handbook project.
On behalf of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture (IRTC), she travelled to Bahrain disguised as a tourist and collected tissue samples from the body of a young man whose remains were discovered at sea, claimed by the police to have drowned. She brought the samples to Turkey, and in the autopsy she carried out, determined that he had been murdered under torture in detention as his family had claimed.
She proved the torture carried out by Adil Serdar Saçan, the former Director of the Directorate of Organized Crime Branch. Her application to intervene on the grounds that her telephone had been tapped by the Ergenekon organization and that her personal information had been filed, becoming the only intervening party in the Ergenekon case.
She continues to publicize the problems of a great number of sick prisoners who require official reports from the Ministry of Justice and the Institute of Forensic Medicine; and draws attention to the importance of the Institute of Forensic Medicine being independent. Despite official reaction, she openly argues for a complete revision of the Institute of Forensic Medicine for the proper functioning of the legal system in Turkey. Although it disturbs those who hold power, since the human rights violations carried out by the state are within the scope of her task, she has not abandoned the struggle against torture, and has continued to speak the truth despite all kinds of pressure and attempts at intimidation.
She teaches at graduate and postgraduate level at the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Istanbul University Medical Faculty and at the Galatasaray University Faculty of Law, and acts as dissertation advisor at MA and PhD levels at the Istanbul University Institute of Forensic Medicine.
She has been the President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) since 2009.
Dear Friends,
I greet you all with love and friendship and I commemorate with friendship and longing all our friends and comrades around the World slain by states, our pigeons left uneasy and unprotected in these lands, and most especially that beautiful human being, Hrant Dink. I am a physician and and I always believe that being a physician is a way of life. I learned about struggling for humanity, siding with humanity when I chose this way of life. I have also always thought that there’s no other way.
Today I feel much embarrassed and incredibly honoured. I feel embarrassed because I am receiving this award as I merely try to fulfil the responsibility of being human. In addition to feeling incredibly honoured, I feel embarrassed because I am receiving the same award extended to Saturday Mothers who have been looking for people lost by the state for years. I feel embarrassed because this award means so much. I feel embarrassed because in my mind I have done what needs to be done and that does not call for an award. I feel embarrassed because what needs to be done is still not readily done in these lands. The fact that the Armenian Genocide is still discussed behind closed doors, the denial of Kurds, their annihilation, the fact that the purging out of indigenous people of this land is celebrated every year, that you live with the shame of the fact that in a neighbourhood populated by the ever-shrinking Armenian community a school is named Talat Pasa, a road Ergenekon, a street Türk Beyi, that we feel the plight of all oppressed people in our hearts but that we have failed in dressing their wounds. The embarrassment of this all…
I feel honoured. Truly honoured. This award given in the name of dear Hrant Dink is an award dedicated to the struggle that we have maintained altogether with great determination. The fact that I have been deemed worthy of an award given to those who “work for a world free of discrimination, racism and violence, take personal risks for their ideals, use the language of peace and by doing so inspire and encourage others” honours my struggle. I feel honoured to be among friends, to be at the table of the sun. I will leave this hall with greater strength, knowing that we are not alone, with confidence. With a greater zeal for struggle in these lands, where sadly human suffering continues every day. With the clear conscience of doing what is right, being human…
Within this endless struggle I have always felt among friends, and at the table of the sun. What gave me power to resist was those friendships and the spirit of solidarity warmed by the sun. Dear friends, I thank you for nominating me for this award, for extending it to me and for giving me a place at the table of the sun.
I still live in hope.