At 9.30pm, I was moved to the foreigners' custody unit of the Istanbul police. There, the atmosphere hardened from a succession of chain-smoking officers, with whom I had to negotiate in my broken Turkish. I was fingerprinted and denied access to lawyers or any contact with the outside world.

March 27 (UPI) -- BBC News correspondent Mark Lowen said Thursday that he was detained and ultimately deported while covering mass protests in Turkey.

Rights groups said the detention and deportation of the reporter, Mark Lowen, was part of an escalation in government pressure against independent journalism.