In late May, the independent Turkish newsroom Kısa Dalga began publishing a five-part investigation into how Schengen visa applications really work in Turkey, tracing links between a former Turkish foreign minister, a businessman named in the Paradise Papers leaks, and the transformation of an air-conditioning vendor operating out of an Istanbul apartment into the gatekeeper of Turkey’s lucrative visa market.
Within hours, a Turkish court banned access to the series, citing “national security and public order.”
The newsroom deemed the ban unconstitutional, and the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) condemned the use of “arbitrary court orders to censor independent journalism.”
Digital platforms, including X and several Turkish news websites, quickly complied with the censorship order. Even the X posts that included archived web URLs of the publication were later blocked by the same court, said Canan Coşkun, the Turkish reporter of the series.
An ordinary Turkish citizen can now barely find the traces of this important piece of journalism on social media or on Google.
