There is no 'Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom' project supported by the Turkish Ministry of the Interior

Context

On June 9, 2023, Ümit Özdağ, Chairman of the Victory Party, one of the opposition parties in Türkiye, tweeted a picture of a leaflet advertising a "Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom" project. 

The tweet claims that the Harmony civil society movement launched a project to marry male refugees in Türkiye with Turkish women. It also stated that the Ministry of the Interior supported the project. Özdağ’s tweet has garnered 4.6 million views, nearly 12,000 retweets, and 74,000 likes. 

However, the advertisement has been misrepresented, and the “Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom” project does not exist.

In Fact

Harmony, a non-governmental organization that aims to develop intercultural relationships within the country, issued a public statement clarifying that the leaflet was part of the "Foreigner Coming to the City" project and depicted an event titled "Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom." The project brings guests from various cultures to have conversations with immigrants and presents new stories to its followers through weekly events. Harmony emphasized that each event had a different title because it represented a different story and clarified that the individuals in the photograph were a married couple. 

The Directorate of Communications also released a statement regarding this issue. It announced that Harmony does not receive support or have a relationship with the Ministry of Interior.

In light of the attention the project received, Helin Aslan, the bride featured in the leaflet, made a statement explaining that Harmony wanted to interview her because her husband was an Egyptian citizen. She emphasized that everyone is free to marry individuals of different nationalities or religions. Aslan also highlighted that the "Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom" project is not real, and the Ministry of Interior is not involved.

The Verdict

Harmony did not run a project called "Turkish Bride, Foreign Groom," encouraging Turkish women to marry refugee men. It merely served as the title for an event within the broader "Foreigner Coming to the City" project. This title was chosen due to the foreign origin of the husband in the leaflet, who happened to be part of a married couple. It has been officially stated that the Ministry of Interior does not provide support to this organization. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.