Canadian journalist detained and refused entry to Turkey

Canadian journalist Neil Hauer was detained for 16 hours and refused entry to Turkey at Istanbul airport. 

In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), Hauer said that he had flown from Yerevan, Armenia to Istanbul. When he arrived, officials at passport told him he was “on the blacklist,” Hauer wrote. 

Hauer said he planned to visit Turkey as a tourist, but believed that he was denied entry because of his work. “I am certain that this ban has something to do with my work as a journalist,” Hauer wrote. 

Hauer wrote that he believes that he may have been denied entry at the request of Azerbaijan, a long-time ally of Turkey, as a result of his reporting on Azerbaijan’s actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, which have been described as ethnic cleansing. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted that Turkey also denied entry to a journalist from Turkmenistan in July 2024, apparently at the request of the country’s government.