Newspaper columnist Ebru Umar has been barred from leaving Turkey while the authorities decide whether to charge her with insulting the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Twitter.

Umar, a Dutch national of Turkish descent, was arrested on Saturday evening while on holiday in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi. She told state broadcaster Nos that police had come to her door and questioned her over ‘a few Tweets’.

The Metro columnist spent the night in custody before being released on Sunday morning, but was ordered to stay in the country. She appeared briefly in court on Monday morning, accompanied by a lawyer supplied by the consulate in Izmir, and is expected to learn later in the day whether she will face charges.

On Monday afternoon it emerged that Umar’s home in Amsterdam had been broken into. She told Metro that her neighbour had phoned with the bad news and that her old laptop had been stolen.

The word ‘whore’ had also been written on a wall in the stairwell.

Foreign affairs minister Bert Koenders said he was ‘relieved’ to learn Umar had been freed after speaking to her on Sunday afternoon. ‘It was a relief to hear that she is doing well in the circumstances,’ he was reported as saying in the Volkskrant.

Prime minister Mark Rutte also said he had spoken to the journalist on Saturday evening and the embassy in Ankara was giving her support. ‘Koenders and the foreign ministry are on top of it,’ he said via his official Twitter account.

Show respect

Koenders urged Turkey to show respect for freedom of the press, but stopped short of criticising Erdogan’s government directly. ‘A country that is a candidate for membership of the EU should not be interfering with freedom of the press and freedom of speech,’ he said after speaking with his Turkish opposite number Mevlüt Çavuçoçlu. ‘I have emphasised that in discussions with Turkish colleagues and will continue to do so.’

Opposition parties criticised the government’s approach as inadequate. D66 MP Sjoerd Sjoerdsma called for Koenders to take action against ‘the unacceptable intimidation’ of journalists, while Joël Voordewind of the Christen Union party said Erdogan had ‘shown his true face’.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders was typically blunt in his response, commenting on Twitter: ‘Keep your Islamofascist paws off our Ebru Umar Erdogan.’

Popular newspaper the Telegraaf was also critical of the cabinet’s stance. ‘The reticence of the Netherlands, as chairman of the EU, is being linked to the refugee deal between Brussels and Ankara. There is a fear that Turkey could go back on its word,’ the newspaper claimed.

Union concern

The Dutch journalists’ union NVJ also demanded a firm response from Koenders and voiced concern about the Turkish government’s hardening stance on foreign journalists. Last year freelance reporter Fréderike Geerdink was deported from Diyarbakir, where she had spent the last three years writing about the troubled Kurdish region for Dutch and English-language media.

‘Unfortunately it’s not uncommon for journalists to be arrested,’ said Thomas Bruning, general secretary of the NVJ. ‘The country thinks it can do as it pleases.’

Umar told The Post Online, an online news site she contributes to, that she had been well treated by the Turkish police. ‘I’m sitting outside with a cup of tea,’ she said on Sunday. Earlier she told Metro: ‘Initially I was supposed to go to hospital to prove I’m not being mistreated, but something seems to have been going on, because I didn’t go to the hospital. I can’t think clearly at the moment.’

German satirist

The arrest of Umar also comes shortly after Erdogan demanded the prosecution of German satirist Jan Böhnermann for reading out a satirical poem about him on German television. Erdogan filed a criminal complaint under a German law that prohibits insulting the head of state of an allied nation.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed the prosecution to go ahead but said the law will be repealed. The Netherlands has a similar law, but the government said last week it will be taken off the statute books.

Last week the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam sent a letter to Turkish nationals in the Netherlands instructing them to report any insulting or denigrating comments directed at President Erdogan. A spokesman for the consulate later claimed the letter had been badly worded and misinterpreted.