On 1 September 1995 Folkvord was arrested by Turkish law enforcement in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir. The Turkish Government said the main reason was his visit to an illegal Kurdish peace festival. That very same day he was flown to Ankara, and later Istanbul and the following day he was delivered back to Norway. Nicolas Rea, a member of the British House of Lords, took a picture of Folkvord during the event. It was claimed that the picture showed Folkvord being beaten by Turkish officials and that the picture was in-turn burnt by the Turkish police when they saw Rea had a camera.