Turkey plans to deport a Finnish woman on suspicion of espionage. According to the independent news site Diken, she is accused of taking part in activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The leftist PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdish state, is considered a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US.
It says she spent a year in the mostly-Kurdish eastern Turkish city of Van researching a book. Her lawyer, Mahmut Kaçan, says the charges are trumped up as an excuse to kick her out.
The site published a press card bearing the woman’s name, issued by a small leftist Finnish journalists’ association. It says she has been sent to a repatriation centre to await deportation.
The Finnish Foreign Ministry says that it has not received official word about the case but that its embassy in Ankara is looking into it.