A Dutch journalist based in Turkey was temporarily detained on charges of terrorist propaganda on Tuesday, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan repeated his claim that the media is freer in Turkey than anywhere else in the world.
“Terrorism police just searched my house, team of 8 guys. they take me to the station now. charge: ‘propaganda for terrorist organization’,” Frederike Geerdink tweeted on Tuesday.
The journalist was released after she was questioned at the Diyarbakır Police Department’s counterterrorism unit for three hours.
It was not exactly clear why Geerdink was detained. Diyarbakır Bar Association Chairman Tahir Elçi wrote on Twitter that the Dutch journalist was detained because of some of her tweets, which were deemed to be spreading terrorist propaganda.
Geerdink, who moved to Turkey in 2006, has been living in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır since 2012. She is focused on issues related to Kurds, human rights and women’s rights. She has a blog and runs a website .
The journalist’s detention came even as Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders is in Turkey for a visit. Koenders was scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on Tuesday.
In a message posted on the Dutch Foreign Ministry’s Twitter account, Koenders said he was “shocked” by Geerdink’s arrest. He said he “will personally discuss this here in Ankara with my Turkish colleague.”
The Dutch journalist is the latest to bear the brunt of what critics say is growing pressure on the media in Turkey. On Monday, journalist and television presenter Sedef Kabaş was summoned to testify again after she was detained and later released on Dec. 30 for posting tweets critical of the government’s handling of a major corruption investigation launched on Dec. 17, 2013.
On Dec. 14, Zaman Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı was detained along with more than two dozen people on charges of leading and being members of an armed terrorist organization. The detentions sparked a wave of criticism from the US, the European Union and leading international human rights and journalist organizations.
On Tuesday, President Erdoğan once again dismissed criticism that media freedom is at risk in Turkey, reiterating his claim that the media in the country is freer than anywhere else in the world.
“Attack the president or the prime minister in those [other] countries, if you dare. You can’t do it in America, Germany or Russia,” he said during a meeting of ambassadors in Ankara, urging the envoys to confront their foreign colleagues when they raise the issue of press freedom.