A mother of a British woman who was convicted in Cyprus after authorities claimed she had lied about being raped, has called for a tourism boycott of the country.
Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office expressed “serious concern” over the case of the 19-year-old woman who has convinced of causing “public mischief” in a widely criticised trial. The woman had recanted a claim that she had been raped in a hotel room in Ayia Napa in July. Her lawyers state she had no legal representation or translators present when she recanted the claim, which was done during interrogation by police officers.
The teenager’s mother told the BBC that she had backed calls for a tourism boycott of the country, which had more than 1.3 million British visitors in 2019 alone
Cypriot government spokesman, Kyriakos Kousios, said public reaction to the case was “exaggerated”. “We are not happy with the extent of publicity and the reaction, which has been exaggerated,” he told The Guardian. “We would have wished that these [boycott] calls hadn’t happened.”
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