Mark BBC Lowen about deportation from Turkey

I just sent my family a message stating as I was happy to go back to Turkey where I lived, and as it seemed to me to return home. Then called the phone in my hotel room.

“We have an urgent case to discuss personally,” the receptionist said. “Could you go down?”

I came to find three police officers with the simple accessories waiting for me. They asked me on the passport and took me away, trying to prevent the picture of my colleagues.

So far, I have been in Istanbul, covering anti -government protests caused by the mayor of Imomoglu’s mayor.

I was first taken to the police headquarters and spent seven hours. Two colleagues allowed to attend, and the lawyers could come to talk. The atmosphere was usually heartfelt. Some police officers told me that they did not agree that they were a state decision. One hugged me and said he was hoping for my freedom.

At 9.30pm I was transferred to the Istanbul’s foreigners’ care unit. There, the atmosphere caught fire from the continuity of the officers who smoke the chain with which I had to agree on my broken Turkish. I was trimmed with my finger and refused to access lawyers or any contact with the outside world.

In the first hours of Thursday, I was presented to the documents to say that I was deported for being “threatening public order”. When I asked for an explanation, they said it was a government decision.

One police officer suggested that he shoot me, saying that I leave Turkey on my own request that could help me return in the future and which he can show his superiors. I politely refused, suspecting it would be provided by a government media to push their events.

By 2.30am, I was moved to the final place – the Department of Guardians at the Airport. I was put in a room with a few rows of hard chairs and said I could sleep there. Between the police officers, to brush your teeth, the planes and the morning call for prayer will not come.

Seventeen hours after my initial detention, I was sent to the expectation plane to take one way to London. On that night, after the case was published, causing significant media lighting around the world, the Turkish government’s press service issued a statement saying that I lack proper accreditation. By no means mentioned it during my detention, and it seemed that they were trying to justify my case.

I never did at any time during the trials. And I knew throughout the time that the BBC and the British Consulate in Istanbul are working hard to provide my release.

So many others that have launched to the Turkish authorities do not have such a security network. When I lived there as a BBC correspondent Istanbul from 2014 to 2019, Turkey was the largest jailer in the world. Watchdog reporters do not occupy Turkey 158 from 180 countries in the press freedom index. Eleven journalists have been among the two thousand people who have been detained since these recent protests have begun.

The latest unrest was caused by the arrest of the Imomoglu Sketch, the main political competitor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who suggested that polls could withdraw the president in the election.

But they grew into something much wider: commitment to democracy in a country that slides further into authoritarianism. Pouring in the media is the main one in this trajectory, as the government gradually defeated criticism or discussion. I looked at these first hands. It ended for me sadness and insomnia. It was much worse for others.

Meanwhile, President Erdogan dripping, rejection of protests as “street terrorism”. It is backed up by the current international climate of the ally in the White House and the importance of Turkey for everything from Ukraine to Syria.

Now the question is whether the largest demonstrations in the country may support the impetus for ten years, whether the long -standing Turkish leader can simply wash. Those who went outside can chant “enough” – but they also know to never write off the Recep Tayyip Erdogan.