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Turkey has deported a correspondent from the BBC over his coverage of the protest movement ignited by the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor who is chief rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Mark Lowen, a British journalist who covered Turkey for the British broadcaster from 2014 to 2019, spent several days reporting on the protests before being detained at his hotel and held by police for 17 hours, the BBC said. He was forced to leave the country early on Thursday.
The BBC said in a statement, shared by Lowen on X, that he was told he posed a threat to public order. BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness described the incident as “extremely troubling”.
“No journalist should face this kind of treatment simply for doing their job. We will continue to report impartially and fairly on events in Turkey,” she said.
Freedom of speech advocates have accused the Turkish authorities of targeting journalists reporting on the mass demonstrations sparked by the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu on graft and terrorism charges that he denies.
The shock arrest of Turkey’s most popular politician on March 19 set off the biggest protests in more than a decade amid fears that Erdoğan, in power since 2003, is pushing the country towards an autocracy.
Financial markets fell sharply on the news of İmamoğlu’s detention, with investors saying they feared for the rule of law in Turkey, forcing the central bank to spend an estimated $25bn of its currency reserves to steady the lira. Markets have steadied this week following pledges from the government that it would stick with an economic recovery programme.
On Thursday, justice minister Yılmaz Tunç told reporters that “accurately informing the public is a fundamental right” in Turkey, but that “disinformation” about İmamoğlu’s case was misleading people. He also said that seven Turkish journalists, including an AFP photographer, who had been jailed would be released during an investigation into whether they were involved with violence at the protests.
The state media regulator slapped a 10-day broadcast suspension on a channel critical of Erdoğan over its coverage of the protests. Four other channels were fined and ordered to halt several news programmes, the Radio and Television Supreme Council said on Thursday.
İmamoğlu’s Republican People’s (CHP) party on Tuesday wound down a week of rallies outside Istanbul city hall that the CHP says drew hundreds of thousands of people despite a heavy-handed police response.
Small protests have continued in Istanbul and the capital Ankara, where police on Thursday used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons against university students attempting to march on campus, according to HalkTV news channel.
Police have detained 1,879 protesters since March 19, the interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said, accusing them of attacking police and “violating national, spiritual and family values”.
İmamoğlu was re-elected to run the city of 16mn people last year and consistently outperforms Erdoğan in surveys of voters. He was formally remanded to custody to await trial on Sunday, the same day the centre-left CHP went ahead with a primary to nominate him as their presidential candidate in an election slated for 2028.
Tunç, the justice minister, said the allegations against İmamoğlu were so grave they required he be held in prison ahead of a trial, but he declined to specify, citing an order for secrecy in the investigation. He also dismissed concerns voiced by some European governments that İmamoğlu’s arrest was politically motivated.
“We absolutely reject any association of the probe with president Erdoğan and any political motives behind the investigation,” Tunç said.
“The mayor of Istanbul was not arrested because he was popular,” he said. “This should help our image in Europe, because Turkey is state of law that holds those accused of corruption to account, regardless of one’s title.”
