The Turkish government recently said that it received some information from the Dutch police that the Dutch journalist “Ans Boersma” has ties with the Syrian terrorist movement Jahbat al-Nusra. “On this basis, we have taken action and we have taken a precautionary measure,” says a President Erdogan’s spokesman on Twitter.
In a second tweet he says that Turkey does not want to speculate about the credibility of the information. “If a reliable foreign authority tells you that one of its citizens has links with terrorism, you do not take any risks, only the authorities in the Netherlands can explain how they came to that conclusion.”
Boersma was correspondent in Turkey for the Dutch news outlet “Het Financieele Dagblad” and also wrote for “Trouw” and the magazine One World. She was put on a plane to the Netherlands this morning.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service said this morning that no extra delivery of Boersma was requested. As usual, it does not want to confirm or deny that there is a criminal investigation in which Boersma is involved.
“Punishable”
NOS correspondent Lucas Waagmeester says that journalists in the Netherlands may have contact with members of terrorist organizations to gather information. That is different in Turkey.
“We do not know whether Ans Boersma had such contacts, but we do know that contact with members of such organizations is punishable for Turkey, and it seems that the Turks have responded to Dutch information from their standards – if there is indeed – and expelled Boersma for that reason.
“Safety risk”
This morning Boersma was put on a plane to the Netherlands. The reason they had to leave Turkey was that they posed a safety risk, according to sources from the NOS.
Boersma, who works for the FD in Turkey, was arrested yesterday when she was reported to the Immigration Service to extend her residence permit. Assistance from a lawyer and the Dutch consul general in Istanbul was with no avail.
