A protester performs in front of Turkish riot police barricades in Istanbul in March. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was jailed and dismissed by the Turkish Ministry of Interior on March 23 on corruption charges following his detention on March 19 along with 100 others. EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN
March 27 (UPI) — BBC News correspondent Mark Lowen said Thursday that he was detained and ultimately deported while covering mass protests in Turkey. “Some news about me,” Lowen wrote in an X post. “Yesterday I was detained by police in Istanbul, held for 17 hours and then deported from Turkey to the U.K.,” and that he was “Told I was ‘a threat to public order.'”
The BBC released a statement Thursday addressing Lowen’s arrest.
“This is an extremely troubling incident and we will be making representations to the Turkish authorities,” BBC News CEO Deborah Turness said.
Turness then complimented Lowen’s work and rebuked what Turkey did, noting that the network “will continue to report impartially and fairly on events in Turkey.”
“To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing,” Lowen said upon his arrival to London Thursday,
Protests in several Turkish cities over Thursday, Friday and Saturday followed the arrest of opposition leader and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu during an early-morning raid Wednesday, which then led to the arrest of hundreds of protestors. The move could mean Turkey has moved away from a democratic system of government, The Guardian reported.