No: 184, 14 August 2016

A falsified headline, claiming that abuse of children under the age of 15 is allowed in Turkey, was displayed on an electronic news ticker of“Kronen Zeitung”newspaper at the passenger lounge of the Vienna International Airport on 13 August 2016. This headline does not reflect the truth at all. Another headline reading that“Throughvacation in Turkey you only support Erdoğan”was intentionally displayed on the same ticker in the near past. We deplore and strongly condemn that an international airport, which islocated in the centre of Europe and intensely used by passengers from different countries,is abused by a discredited newspaper to spread its irresponsible, distorted and falsified messages in order to defame a friendly country and its nation.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs took the necessary steps through the Austrian Embassy in Ankara and the Turkish Embassy in Vienna also conveyedits reaction about the matter on the same day.

Turkey is a state that always aims at protecting and improving the universal human rights and is committed itself to the international conventions in the field of child rights and their additional protocols both verbally and spiritually, as an esteemed member of the international community. Turkey is aware of its responsibilities and duties in this field.

A country inaposition of the rising centre of racism and xenophobia ever increasing in Europe should focus on healing these diseases through its politicians, media and society. Instead, some irresponsible media may falsify and reflect even judicial decisions in another country to feed their hateful and hostile discourses against a society and we consider it as a manifestation of these diseases.

Unfortunately, the statements of some Austrian politicians and officials against Turkey and EU membership of Turkey encourage such defamatory news.

This tendency damages social harmony and peace in Austria where more than 300 thousand people of Turkish origin live.