The Turkish authorities deported the Greek journalist Evangelos Areteos from the country.

As he made public in a post on social media after several years of traveling and working in Turkey, “the Turkish authorities have decided to deport me and forbid me to return for reasons of public order.”

“The main reason, from what I understood from what I was asked the night I was detained at the airport, was my travels to southeastern Turkey, a trip to northern Syria in 2015, and my travels to the rest of Turkey. As well as my contacts with people whom the Turkish state considers guilty and the photos on my mobile phone, which are related to the activities of the Kurds in northern Syria, which I received through a Whatsapp group of people who follow the developments in the region. Like any journalist who reports, I was the recipient of news and photos.”

According to Areteos, he never hid his travels and meetings. “I was an accredited journalist, with a card from the relevant Turkish agency. From my travels, not only in southeast Turkey but throughout the country, I made a daily report that was published in the media I worked for all these years. These are what helped me write two books and a series of analyses, focusing on society and social changes in the country, along with political developments and foreign policy, topics that I covered as a journalist, officially accredited in Turkey.”

As he continues in his post, “the decision of the Turkish authorities is something I cannot understand, it is something that deeply saddens me and now makes me feel like an exile. I will continue to cover Turkey and work with the same convictions even from a distance, in the hope that the Turkish state leaders will at some point reverse their decision.”

Who is Evangelos Areteos?
Evangelos Areteos is a journalist specialising in Turkey and its region and is a researcher (non-resident research fellow) in the Turkey program of the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Nicosia. He was born in 1971 in Athens and studied Law in France and Islamic Studies in Belgium.

He is the author of a book about the period between the 2013 Gezi protests and the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, From Gezi Utopia to Coup.