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A Dutch journalist based in Turkey said was deported from the country on Thursday, a day after she was arrested.
“I got arrested yesterday (Wednesday), got deported this morning. Flying out now”, Ans Boersma, a freelance journalist based in Istanbul who has contributed articles to the financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, said in a messaging group for foreign journalists in Turkey.
A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed her expulsion but said it “wasn’t related to her journalistic activities or her reporting from Turkey.
“To the best of my knowledge, our office had recently approved her press credentials for 2019.”
Human rights defenders have raised concerns over a clampdown on freedom of expression in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with dozens of journalists and civil society activists put behind bars.
Turkey is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2018 World Press Freedom Index.
In December, a Turkish court ordered the release from jail of an Austrian student and journalist charged with being a member of a terror group.
Max Zirngast, who writes for the far-left German-language magazine Re:volt, had been formally arrested by an Ankara court in September.