Turkey has arrested a Dutch journalist for a tweet deemed critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Two Turkish journalists are now on trial and could face life in prison for publishing a story with images alleging the Turkish government smuggled weapons to Syria.
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In the free newspaper Metro last week, Umar called Edogan a “dictator” and criticised a Turkish consular official in the Netherlands for asking all Turks there to report incidents of insults against Erdogan in the country.
Metro newspaper said Turkish-Dutch columnist Ebru Umar was detained on Saturday. The journalist tweeted that police were at her door and that she was being taken to a police station in the resort of Kusadasi.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can not take criticism and will not tolerate dissent in Turkey… or, it seems, in Germany and the Netherlands.
In a second tweet, she said, “I’m not free, we’re going to hospital” for a medical examination before being interrogated by prosecutors.
Writing in Metro and the critical website GeenStijl, she has denounced headscarves, excessive noise from mosques and what she sees as excessive Dutch tolerance, attracting bulging bags of hate mail from furious critics.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call, saying it was not clear what the Turkish government aims to achieve.
A spokesman for the Dutch foreign ministry confirmed that Umar had been detained by police.
“We are aware of it. We are in contact and we’re following the case very closely”, he said.
Ms Umar was detained as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and an European Union delegation were in Turkey for talks about the implementation of an agreement on migration. The journalist had compared the appeal to “NSB practices”, referring to the Dutch branch of the Nazi party prior and during the World War II, the Associated Press reported.
Last week, Umar’s column criticized the Turkish consulate’s appeal to report insults.
German and the Netherlands have laws against insulting the head of a friendly state.
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Umar’s detention comes just over a week after Turkey requested permission from Germany for the possible prosecution of a comedian who wrote a crude poem about the Turkish president.
