13 jul 2022 om 21:33 | Update: 9 minuten geleden
Geerdink was about to cross the border into Syria. She was taken by the police to the airport in the Iraqi city of Erbil, where she currently remains. Geerdink herself thinks that she is being deported because she is “persona non grata”, someone who is not welcome because of her “sharp pen”.
–
“It is downright sad that the authorities in the Kurdish region in Iraq are so afraid of a woman with a pen. And of course of their own local journalists, who are in prison more often than ever,” writes Geerdink. The journalist works for various Dutch media. She often writes about Kurdistan.
–
In 2015, Geerdink was arrested in Turkey on suspicion of spreading propaganda for the PKK, a Kurdish organization that is also on the European Union’s terror list. She was acquitted. Later that year, she was detained for several days for allegedly being in a restricted area. She was eventually deported from Turkey. Then she went to Iraq and Syria. Her most recent book was published in 2018: This fire never goes out: a year with the PKK.
–
Foreign Affairs has ‘close contact’ with Geerdink
According to a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the consul general in Erbil is in “close contact” with the journalist. “In contact with the authorities of the region, we expressed our concerns about the deportation of Geerdink,” says the spokesperson.
–
“We believe that journalists should be able to do their work anywhere in the world, so we have emphasized the importance of press freedom.” The Dutch ambassador in Baghdad has also contacted the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs about the matter.
–
