Turkey deports Dutch financial journalist over ‘security-related reasons’: Dutch daily

Turkey has deported a journalist working for a Dutch financial newspaper over unspecified “security-related reasons,” as Ankara continues its crackdown on the press over two years after a failed coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“And then suddenly you are in the plane back to the Netherlands,” said Ans Boersma, 31, who works for the Dutch news outlet Het Financieele Dagblad (FD), on her Twitter account on Thursday, adding that he had been declared by Ankara as an “undesirable person” in the Anatolian country.

The FD reported on Wednesday that Boersma’s request for an extension of her residence permit had been rejected by police, who told her that she was being expelled from Turkey for “safety-related reasons.” The Dutch journalist had been working in Turkey since 2017.

“Ans did her work sensibly and responsibly. This measure is a flagrant violation of press freedom. It is extremely sad that journalists in Turkey cannot do their work undisturbed,” said Jan Bonjer, the editor-in-chief of the daily.

Furthermore, Reuters quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that Boersma’s deportation “wasn’t related to her journalistic activities or her reporting from Turkey.”

The Netherlands and Turkey recently restored diplomatic relations following a wave of diplomatic tensions in 2017, in which the Dutch government prevented the Turkish government’s politicians from campaigning among Dutch Turks ahead of Ankara’s April 2017 constitutional plebiscite.

In its 2018 press freedom index, Reporters Sans Frontiere ranked Turkey 157th out of 180 countries. According to P24, a platform that promotes editorial independence in the Anatolian country, Ankara is currently holding more than 160 journalists and reporters in detention.

In the past few years, Ankara has also deported over a dozen Western journalists, including those from the United States, Germany, the Netherlands.

Since the mid-July 2016 failed coup, the Turkish government has been engaged in suppressing the media and opposition groups suspected to have played a role in the botched putsch. Ankara accuses US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen to have masterminded and orchestrated the coup, a claim rejected by the cleric.

In the post-coup crackdown, Turkish authorities have shut some 150 media outlets mostly over having suspected links with Gulen and his outlawed his movement, which Ankara has branded it as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of having links to Gulen and the failed coup while some 150,000 others, including civil servants, military personnel and others, have been sacked or suspended from their jobs over the same accusations.

The international community and rights groups have been highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals and the crackdown.