Burglary at Dutch flat of journalist briefly held in Turkey

Beirut: A Dutch journalist who was briefly detained by Turkish police after tweeting about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Monday her Amsterdam apartment had been broken into, denouncing what she called "intimidation."

"So there was a burglary in my Amsterdam home. I m impressed. intimidated. o wait... I M NOT," Ebru Umar wrote on her Twitter account in English.

In another Tweet, she said the break-in was "no coincidence."

Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin, said she was hauled out of bed and arrested late Saturday at her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

She was released on Sunday after top Dutch officials voiced concerns at her arrest, but is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police twice a week.

Police had questioned her for about 16 hours over two Tweets she had sent in which she sharply criticised Erdogan.

But Umar told the daily Metro, a Dutch newspaper which she writes for, that her Amsterdam apartment was burgled overnight, saying the door "was forced open, and my old computer was taken".

She took to Twitter on Monday to voice her thanks to everyone for their support during her detention. Although the officers were "a bit harsh" at first, Umar said she had been "treated very well."

Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said Sunday he was "relieved" she had been released, but slammed her arrest, saying he had contacted his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to voice his "regret" about the case.

"I made it clear that press freedom and freedom of expression is a good thing," Koenders said in a statement.

"A country that is a candidate to join the EU should continue to push for press freedom and freedom of expression," he stressed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also telephoned his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu to voice his concerns.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.