Austria issues warning for citizens traveling to Turkey

The Austrian Foreign Ministry has warned its citizens about traveling to Turkey, saying passport holders could be arrested or rejected upon arrival.

“Recently there have been sporadic cases of Austrian citizens being temporarily arrested, held up as well as rejected on arrival (in Turkey)," said the warning on the ministry’s website.

The travel advice, which was updated on Wednesday, said Turkish authorities had analyzed mobile phones of the Austrian passport holders to hold them for several days, adding that most of the arrests had been made "without there being any known concrete accusations being made by the Turkish authorities.”

Austria has a 360,000-strong Turkish minority, with many of them having Austrian citizenship. Officials have not specifically mentioned the community in the recent travel advice, although reports suggest that most of those caught up in Turkey have been Austria-based Turks suspected of having links to plotters of a failed coup in July 2016.

Peter Pilz, a prominent Austrian opposition lawmaker, said earlier this month that Turkish authorities had held for three days some 10 Austrian citizens upon their arrival in Turkey.

The Austrian Interior Ministry said in February that it had launched a probe into charges brought against an Ankara-controlled organization which manages mosques and religious centers in the European country. The organization, called ATIB, is accused of reporting on Turkish followers of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric whom Ankara blames for the last year bloody coup.

A similar probe has been launched in Germany against DITIB, ATIB’s counterpart operating in the country. A raid was carried out in February into the homes of four clerics working for DITIB.

Read more:

• Turkish cleric slams German police raids

Switzerland has also opened a case on Ankara’s alleged spying on members of its Turkish community.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk