Dutch journalist based in Diyarbakır detained

Frederike Geerdink, a Dutch journalist based in Diyarbakir, was detained for several hours on charges related to terrorism, according to her own dispatch. “Police just search my house, team of 8 guys,” she tweeted Tuesday morning (8 January). Dutch embassy officials  confirmed the accuracy of the report and said she would be receiving consular assistance.

 
Geerdink specialises in reporting Kurdish affairs and is the author of De Jongens Zign Dood (“The boys are Dead”) — an in-depth investigation of the Roboski airstrikes. This was an incident in 2011 in which 34 smugglers presumed to be mistaken for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants attempting to cross the Iraqi border into Turkey.
 
The arrest corresponds with an official visit to Ankara by the Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders. He is scheduled to have dinner Tuesday with his Turkish counterpart as part of a  4-day conference for Turkish ambassadors. The evening’s topic is “public diplomacy” and “making the Turkish case abroad.”
 
A tweet by the Dutch foreign ministry indicated a high level of concern.

“She is an excellent journalist and cares very deeply about Turkey,” a senior Dutch diplomat said.
 
Geerdink’s detention also coincides with a government initiative to resolve the long-standing grievances of its Kurdish population. Senior Turkish officials are in direct negotiation with Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK’s imprisoned leader. As part of its “Kurdish opening” the government is committed to a more liberal discussion of  region issues.
 
At the same time dissident Turkish news outlets have come under direct pressure. The editor-in-chief of Zaman newspaper was recently taken in for questioning on charges of being a member of a terrorist organisation. He is accused of being part of a conspiracy to implicate the leader of a religious sect  in al-Qaida like violence. and the head of Samanyolu television is still under detention for similar charges.
 
In her blog, Kurdish Matters, Geerdink suggested that as a foreign correspondent she enjoyed a greater freedom to report. “Turkey is complicated and changing rapidly, but therefore a journalist’s dream. A foreign journalist’s dream, that is – for Turkish and even more so for Kurdish journalists, it is hard and often impossible to work here freely,” she wrote.
 
Her brief detention suggests that the foreign press in Turkey may also no longer enjoy immunity. In recent months senior government figures have targeted journalists writing in prestigious western publications as part of an orchestrated attempt to blacked Turkey’s name. “The  media reports coming from American and European newspapers are presented as nothing but disinformation engaged in a ‘perception operation’ to hurt our wonderful country,” according to Ömer Taşpınar writing in the P24 website.
 
 

Tags: NULL