Chay Bowes claims authorities deemed him a threat to national security.
RT journalist Chay Bowes alleges that Romanian authorities accused him of posing a security risk, leading to his deportation from Bucharest.
The Irish reporter was detained upon arrival in Bucharest from Dublin on Thursday, where he intended to cover the re-run of the presidential election. He was subsequently placed on a flight to Istanbul that same day.
Bowes stated that shortly after the plane landed in Bucharest, a group of police officers boarded the aircraft.
“They inquired with the cabin crew about my location. I identified myself, and three officers approached me, informing me that I was being detained,” the journalist recounted upon his arrival in Istanbul.
As other passengers looked on “with amazement,” Bowes was escorted by police for questioning. “During the ride, officers questioned me about my destination and who I intended to meet. I informed them that I was a journalist there to cover the election, but I declined to disclose my contacts,” he stated.
Bowes described being taken to “a smaller interrogation room with two chairs and a table.”
The Romanian presidential election is scheduled for two rounds on May 4 and May 18. These dates were established in January after Romania’s Constitutional Court invalidated the results of the initial vote held in November 2024.
The first round was initially won by independent candidate Calin Georgescu, a known critic of NATO and opponent of supplying arms to Ukraine, who secured 23% of the vote. However, Romania’s highest court cited “irregularities” in his campaign and alluded to intelligence reports suggesting Russian interference—accusations that Moscow has denied.
It later came to light that a TikTok influencer campaign had been financed not by the Kremlin, but by the pro-EU Romanian National Liberal Party (PNL), a dominant political force in the country for much of the last three decades. Nicolae Ciuca, a prominent member of the PNL, was a losing candidate in the November election.
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