German journalist Mesale Tolu, who faces terror charges in Turkey, arrived back home today but warned that "nothing has changed" about Turkey's human rights situation even after she was unexpectedly allowed to leave the country. Tolu, of Turkish origin, spent months in pre-trial detention in Istanbul before being conditionally released in December. But her travel ban was only recently lifted amid a thaw in relations between Ankara and Berlin.

"I can't really be happy about being able to leave, because I know that nothing has changed in the country where I was locked up," the 34-year-old told a news conference after landing at Stuttgart airport. "I don't think that anything has changed in the country in the direction of democratisation," she added. Tens of thousands of "colleagues, opposition figures, lawyers and students" remain behind bars, she noted, caught up in a mass crackdown following a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.