Nearly 1,000 news reports and social media posts about the suspicious death of 21-year-old student Rojin Kabaiş have been blocked in Turkey at the request of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University (YYÜ), sparking accusations of a cover‑up and an assault on press freedom.
According to an investigation by journalist Ali Safa Korkut for Kısa Dalga, at least 974 URLs — including news articles, social media posts and entire accounts — have been rendered inaccessible. Six court orders secured by the YYÜ rectorate since 8 September alone targeted 794 URLs, all justified on grounds of “protecting national security and public order.”
Kabaiş, a first‑year pre‑school teaching student at YYÜ, disappeared on 27 September 2024 after leaving her state dormitory. On 15 October her body was found on the shore of Lake Van, about 20 kilometers from where she was last seen. Family members say that on the day of the funeral the Van governor and the university’s rector told her father, Nizamettin Kabaiş, that his daughter had “committed suicide” — a claim he rejects and has challenged in court.
Doubts intensified after an independent physician who attended the October 2024 autopsy reported seeing bruise‑like marks on Kabaiş’s back, behind her knees and on her neck, which he says did not appear in the official report. The investigation has been conducted under a secrecy order. A 14 November 2024 report by the Istanbul Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) listed the cause of death as drowning. Yet days earlier, ATK’s Biological Specialization Department had detected DNA from two different men on swabs from Kabaiş’s chest and the inside of her vagina. On 13 November, experts formally ruled out laboratory contamination, reinforcing suspicions of sexual assault and homicide. The family is demanding that the owners of the DNA be identified.
As public pressure mounted, so did efforts to limit discussion of the case. Court records reviewed by Kısa Dalga show that an initial decision on 8 September blocked three URLs; by 11 September, two more rulings had pushed the total to nine. On 17 October, 154 more URLs were blocked, and on 23 October a single order by Van’s 2nd Criminal Judgeship of Peace took down 628 URLs in one sweep, many targeting journalists and media outlets.
Of the 794 URLs blocked since early September, 598 were individual social media posts. Nine X (formerly Twitter) accounts were banned entirely, including that of Kabaiş’s sister Elif. The dragnet also ensnared AI bots: a ruling by the Van 8th Civil Court restricted three posts by the X accounts of Grok and Ask Perplexity. Newsrooms hit by takedown orders include Kısa Dalga, Karar, T24, Halk TV, Evrensel, Mezopotamya Ajansı, Jin News, and others, as well as local Van‑based accounts.
Van journalist Ruşen Takva, whose two X accounts and multiple posts were blocked, said the university’s moves damage both the case and the public interest. He noted that his reports focused on unanswered questions around the ATK report, the delayed disclosure of sperm findings and the early insistence on suicide. “Our coverage of the doubts and protests is said to threaten national security and to be ‘misleading information’,” he said. “I do not understand how a single tweet or a news story can endanger national security.”
Journalist Kadir Cesur, whose account and 12 posts were blocked, argued that banning a reporter’s social media feed is equivalent to confiscating work tools. “This is an attack on the public’s right to receive information and on press freedom,” he said.
Diren Yurtsever, managing editor of Mezopotamya Ajansı, whose reports and posts were also blocked, linked the wave of censorship to the strengthening suspicion of sexual assault. “Whenever facts emerging from a case touch state institutions, censorship appears,” she said, adding that officials who tried to present the death as suicide “without an effective investigation” now fear that “truth and responsibility will come to light.”
Kabaiş’s father accuses rector Hamdullah Şevli of trying to shield the university instead of helping to clarify his daughter’s death. “The rector should have done everything to shed light on this case,” he said. “Instead, he tried to suppress evidence in Van, and now he’s trying to crush student protests and block news and posts. By acting this way, he exposes himself.”
Lawyer Burcu Şeber, who represents Takva, argues that the university has overstepped its legal role. Universities, she says, are mandated to conduct scientific research and provide education, not to seek bans on journalistic content. By requesting access blocks, YYÜ “has made itself a party against freedom of expression and the press, which is incompatible with scientific neutrality,” she said. She contests the “national security and public order” justification, noting that the targeted material consists of reports and commentary on a matter of clear public interest. “This is less about blocking content than about trying to silence journalists,” she concluded.
Photo: Gemini AI