German Photojournalist Denied Entry into Turkey

DUSSELDORF, Germany (A.W.)—A German photojournalist planning to cover the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide was denied entry last week into Turkey. Several reports surfaced on April 5 that Der Spiegel magazine’s Andy Spyra was barred from entering the country on the alleged suspicion of being an Islamic extremist militant.

photo by  Jetmir Idrizi/www.andyspyra.com
Photo by Jetmir Idrizi/www.andyspyra.com

According to Turkey’s Diken.com, Spyra was sent back to Germany after being held at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport detention center overnight.

Spyra reportedly boarded a Turkish Airlines flight from Dusseldorf to Istanbul on March 28, with the intention of doing a story on the Armenian Genocide Centennial.  After landing in Istanbul, four civilian-officers escorted him to a special security area, where they held him overnight. Spyra’s colleagues notified the German consulate general in Istanbul and the German Embassy in Ankara about the situation. He was forced to board a plane to Dusseldorf the next morning.

Spyra has visited Turkey several times to cover news stories, but noted that this was the first time he was detained and deported by Turkish officials.

“Turkish authorities told their German colleagues that I am believed to be a jihadist due to [my] khaki colored clothes and ‘military equipment.’ However, we later learned that the night that I was in the airport, the German consulate general informed Turkish authorities that I am a journalist and made a formal protest,” Spyra told reporters.

Born in Hagen, Germany, Spyra is a freelance photographer currently based in Dortmund. Alongside his assignments, he is currently working on personal, long-term projects in the Balkans and the Middle East. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Getty images Grant for Editorial Photography and the Photographers Giving Back (PGB) Award Feature Picture of the Year, and his work has been featured in such publications as TIME, Newsweek, and the New Yorker, according to Spyra’s personal website.

Der Spiegel withdrew its Turkey correspondent Hasnain Kazim last year, after he received over 10,000 threats via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter, reported Today’s Zaman. The threats came after Kazim’s reports on the deadly disaster at the Soma coal mine, which killed 301 miners.

In May 2014, Der Spiegel published an article with the headline, “Scher dich zum Teufel, Erdoğan” (“Go to Hell, Erdogan”), a direct quote from one of the Soma survivors.  Groups close to the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party viewed the headline as an insult against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a Twitter campaign #ScherDichZumTeufelDerSpiegel (“Go to Hell Der Spiegel”) followed.

Spyra is not the only journalist to be barred from entering Turkey under similar circumstances. Turkish-born German journalist Mehmet Sait Uluisik was denied entry into the country in November 2007, after being declared a suspicious person. Uluisik had intended to conduct research in the Ottoman archives on the role of Circassians in the Armenian Genocide.

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