The Finnish Embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara has sent the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs a sharply-worded diplomatic note concerning the arrest and inappropriate treatment of Finnish Kurdistan expert Kristiina Koivunen.
In the note, Finland protests the ban on entering the country that was imposed on Koivunen, and notes that the decision was not presented to her in writing, as required by international practice.
The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs says that Koivunen should have been notified of the ban when she was entering the country, and not when she was already in Turkey.
Koivunen was also not given her deportation order in writing. Instead, she was flown out of the country on her own plane ticket, and not at the expense of the country from which she was being expelled.
Koivunen was arrested in mid-December in the Kurdish region of Turkey, where she was collecting material for a book on Kurdistan.
Koivunen, who had written her doctoral thesis on Kurdistan, has published two other books on the region.
