Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish journalist, writer and human rights defender from Diyarbakir. Since Nurcan graduated from Ankara University in political science and international relations from Bilkent University she returned to her hometown Diyarbakir and concentrates on the humanitarian issues of the Kurdish people in her region. Between 1997 - 2007 Nurcan supervised the Development Program of the United Nations in Diyarbakir as project coordinator. Her work at that time focused on fighting poverty through microfinancing of women's entrepreneurship. In 2008 Nurcan devised a rural development program in war-torn villages of Tatvan, Kavar, on behalf of the Ozyegin Foundation. This program had a fundamental impact on the improvement of living standards including education, employment and healthcare of over 2000 people in this region.

In 2012 Nurcan co-founded together with other Kurdish and Turkish activists and academics the Diyarbakir Political and Social Research Institute (DISA). Since then DISA has designed and realized several research projects on important aspects of the Kurdish situation in Turkey including education in their mother tongue and reconciliation. Nurcan serves as an advisor and board member for several non-profit organisations like the Women Labour and Employment Platform, the Global Fund for Women and the Mezopotamya Foundation. In 2014  after ISIS had attacked Şengal Nurcan established an organization that worked on saving kidnapped and enslaved Yezidi women from ISIS.

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Nurcan is a member of the Turkish PEN and one of the very few journalists reporting on the Turkish-Kurdish conflict from inside Turkey. Because of her work Nurcan's home had been raided and she has been arrested several times by the Turkish police. In 2017 she received the "Brave women Journalist Award" and was 2018 named the Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders.