News / Turkey

Turkey deports UK scholar over Nowruz celebration invitation

Wednesday, 16 March 2016 10:19 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 17 March 2016 2:56 AM ]

Professor Chris Stephenson

Turkey has deported a British scholar after he was found with invitations to a Kurdish ceremony to celebrate the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz.

A computer sciences lecturer at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, Chris Stephenson was deported after living in Turkey for over two decades. He is married to a Turkish national and has a 13-year-old daughter.

Speaking to the Associated Press before his Wednesday forced departure from Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, the Cambridge graduate said Ankara was deporting him with “no trial, just an administrative decision.”

Going to a court house to show support for three other academics, Stephenson was arrested on charges of terrorism propaganda on Tuesday. The three Turkish scholars had been detained the day before in relation to an investigation into a petition calling for a halt in offensives against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

“I’ve lived in Turkey for 25 years. This is very scary and wrong,” he said.

The scholar claims he was arrested because of three bilingual Nowruz celebration invitations signed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) provincial presidency.

"In no way was I supporting terrorism," he said. "I was supporting a peaceful solution."

The arrest was made just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for his country to “redefine” terror and terrorists, adding that the new definition would expand the country’s legal scope to encompass journalists, activists, legislators, and academics.

Erdogan has on various occasions claimed that the HDP is an extension of the PKK which Turkey deems as a terrorist group.

Also on Wednesday, Erdogan called on the Turkish parliament to broaden the new anti-terrorism legislation without delay.

"Those who support directly or indirectly people who destroy innocent lives are not in the slightest different from terrorists," he said. "We must immediately revise the definition of terror and terrorist. In line with this new definition, we must immediately change the penal code."

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months.

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