Released photographer says Turkey sending ‘strong message’

PARIS: French photojournalist Mathias Depardon, who was held for a month in Turkey, said on his return to France Friday night that Ankara wanted to send a ‘strong message’ to reporters wishing to go to the southeast of the country.

Depardon, who was detained near the Syrian border while on assignment for National Geographic magazine, said he was “happy to be in Paris, to be in France” as he was met by government officials at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport.

“I’m fine,” the 37-year-old told reporters, smiling but visibly tired.

Depardon said he was accused of terrorist propaganda and supporting terrorist groups, namely the Kurdish separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), over some photographs he had taken in recent years.

“I think the idea was to send a strong message to foreign and Turkish journalists who are intending to cover news in southeast Turkey,” he said.

The southeast has been battered by renewed fighting between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces since a fragile truce collapsed in 2015.

Depardon said he had very little contact with other detainees and did not know long he was going to be held.

“I knew that legally I could be detained up to a year,” he said.

The photographer was deported a day after receiving a visit from his mother for the first time at the detention centre in Gaziantep.

President Emmanuel Macron had announced Depardon’s arrival on Twitter after asking his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan last weekend to ensure the journalist’s return to France “as soon as possible.”

Macron had welcomed his release, saying in a statement: “France is committed to freedom of the press and the protection of journalists everywhere.”

Depardon was detained on May 8 while on assignment in Hasankeyf in Turkey’s southeastern Batman province. — AFP