TURKEY DEPORTS GERMAN PHOTOJOURNALIST WHO WAS GOING TO COVER ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ARTICLE
12:04 06/04/2015 ” SOCIETY
Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine’s photojournalist was barred from
entering into Turkey and deported on the alleged suspicion of
being jihadist last week although German officials informed Turkish
authorities about the situation of journalist, an online news portal
reported, according to Today’s Zaman.
According to an article published on the Diken.com news portal, citing
Der Spiegel’s report over the incident, photojournalist Andy Spyra
sent back to Germany after being held Ä°stanbul Ataturk Airport’s
detention center over a night.
Spyra reportedly took a Turkish Airlines plane from Germany’s
Dusseldorf en route to Ä°stanbul on March 28 to cover an article
about the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. When he landed
in Ä°stanbul around 5.20 p.m. four civilians took him to a special
security area and told him to open his luggage. Police officers
searched the camera cleaning kit that, the journalist said, looks like
a little rocket but obviously to be a kit, looked at the photos inside
of camera’s memory card and also looked at his photos with peshmarga
taken his Iraq visit on his mobile phone. “They looked at these photos
taken with military vest. Their face were looking so serious,” he said.
Spyra reportedly tried to tell that he is a journalist and showed the
hotel reservation; however, couldn’t make police to listen him. The
journalist told that he would be sent to Dusseldorf next morning and
taken to Ataturk Airport deportation center.
While he was detention center, officials returned German
photojournalist’s mobile phone back and he called his colleague who
had been in Turkey and his editors in Germany. Journalist’s friend and
editors let German Consulate General in Ä°stanbul and German Embassy
in Ankara over the situation. He was taken to Dusseldorf plane on
9.55 a.m. next morning and welcomed by Federal police in the airport.
“Turkish authorities told their German colleagues that I am believed
to be jihadist due to khaki colored clothes and ‘military equipment’…
However, we later learned that the night that I was in the airport,
German Consulate General informed Turkish authorities that I am a
journalist and made a formal protest.'”