[1] Selek attended the high school Lycée Notre Dame de Sion Istanbul and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in the sociology department at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.

[8] Pınar Selek was arrested on July 11, 1998, in connection to an explosion that had occurred two days prior at the Spice Bazaar, Istanbul, which had killed seven people and wounded approximately 100 others.

[22] Nonetheless, the court decided on November 22, 2012 to amend its own prior acquittal decisions and reopen her trial, a move which her defense lawyers labeled as "unprecedented in Turkish legal history.

[25] While Selek was tried in absentia, more than 30 nongovernmental organizations and political party representatives from France, Germany, Italy, and Austria attended the hearings, and nearly 150 people protested during the trial.

The retrial was set for March 31, 2023, and was attended by a delegation of a hundred lawyers, politicians, academics and representatives of non-governmental organizations, from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway and Turkey.

"[33] Human Rights Watch has called her prosecution a "perversion of the criminal justice system and abuse of due process," and insisted that the "baseless charges should be dropped once and for all.

"[34] PEN International has expressed outrage and concern and argued that the judicial campaign against Selek seeks to penalize her for her "long standing support for and work on minority groups in Turkey.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) has expressed its support for Selek and dismay at the prolonged denial of justice she has been subject to.

[8] Recent publications include Le chaudron militaire turc (2023), which analyzes the co-production of masculinity and nationalism through obligatory military service and institutionalised relations to violence.