Umair
The BBC said on Thursday that Turkey had deported a correspondent who was covering the antigovernment protests in the country, after he was detained and labeled “a threat to public order.”
The broadcaster said in a statement that Mark Lowen, who had been in the country for several days, was taken from his hotel on Wednesday and held for 17 hours. He arrived in London on Thursday morning.
“No journalist should face this kind of treatment simply for doing their job,” said Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, who described the detention and deportation as “an extremely troubling incident.”
“We will continue to report impartially and fairly on events in Turkey,” she added, and said that the BBC would reach out to the Turkish authorities.
Mr. Lowen was in Turkey reporting on the political crisis sparked by the arrest last week of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top rival, on accusations of corruption and supporting terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of Turks have protested in cities across the country since his arrest. About 170 people have been jailed pending trial, the country’s interior ministry said as of Wednesday.
Mr. Imamoglu, who was subsequently removed from his post as mayor and jailed pending trial on the corruption charges, said his arrest was politically motivated. Critics of Mr. Erdogan said the moves were the latest example of his increasingly authoritarian tactics after two decades in power.
Mr. Lowen, a well-known correspondent who had previously lived in Turkey for five years, was not the only journalist to be caught up in the crackdown. Of the more than 1,300 people that the interior ministry has said have been arrested in connection with the protests, 11 were journalists. Seven of the detained reporters, including a photographer for the French news agency Agence France-Presse, were released without charge on Thursday.
“To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing,” Mr. Lowen said in a statement. “Press freedom and impartial reporting are fundamental to any democracy.”
Turkey did not announce the deportation and Turkish officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ben Hubbard contributed reporting from Istanbul.
