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Back in London after Turkey handed me a permanent entry ban for "the news I wrote," I think about ISIS leader Baghdadi's brother travelling freely in and out of the country, as it's the only piece I've written about Turkey since my last visit in May 2019. https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-s-brother-travelled-in-and-out-of-istanbul-as-his-courier-for-months-1.933814?g=
Unlike Jumaa Al Baghdadi, who apparently roamed in and out of Istanbul freely, I was escorted to my flight out of the city by this unfortunate plonker on a motorised tricycle. The irony and the shame were too much.
An intel source for the story about a senior ISIS member moving in and out of Turkey said "no one likes their dirty secrets being revealed to the world". You do appear to be very sensitive about this story @TurkeyMFA. It is very curious, indeed.
I have protested my ban to the relevant officials, and I am yet to hear any answers. But my treatment was nothing compared to that faced by journalists inside the country. Many journalists, both local and foreign, operate in fear, watching their every step.
More than 120 journalists remain jailed in Turkey, many on trumped up terrorism-related charges, some on no charges at all: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-media/more-than-120-journalists-still-jailed-in-turkey-international-press-institute-idUSKBN1XT26T
Yes I can never go back to Turkey, but I was allowed to leave to my home country and had my luggage flown back to me. I saw a darker-skinned man violently assaulted and detained by six plainclothes policemen in the same room as me for protesting his own entry ban.
So I guess what I want to say is: many do not get the same light-handed treatment that I received for being a white British journalist. And, don't be fooled, Turkey is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship, one that I will never step foot in again.
