Greek journalist barred from entering Turkey

Turkey has allegedly expelled a Greek journalist living in the country in the interest of “public order.”

In a post shared on social media on Monday, Evangelos Areteos, an accredited journalist specializing in Turkey and the wider region, said he was stopped by security officials at Istanbul’s airport Sabiha Gokcen, before being set for deportation.

“After twenty-three years, during which I lived, for eight years, and then traveled and worked in Turkey, the Turkish authorities decided to deport me and forbid me to return for reasons of ‘public order’,” said Areteos, who is also a non-resident research fellow at the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Nicosia, in Cyprus.

It was not immediately clear when the incident occurred. 

The journalist said that his questioning by security officials at the airport suggests that the reason behind the decision was related to his travels in southeast Turkey and other parts of the country, as well as a trip to northern Syria in 2015.

Born in Athens in 1971, Areteos studied law in France and Islamic Studies in Belgium. He is the author of a book about the time in the runup to the Gezi demonstrations in 2013 and the botched coup attempt against Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. He also co-authored the 2019 book “Turkey: The train of the great modernization.”

“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,” the journalist said.

“I will continue to cover Turkey and work with the same convictions even from a distance, in the hope that at some point the Turkish authorities will reverse their decision,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Turkish authorities.