Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey leaves the session 'Gaza: The Case for Middle East Peace' at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. Photo: WEF.

Jews and Armenians are the most popular targets for hate speech in Turkish media with 25 percent of all cases, while Christians follow them at 18 percent, according to a study by the Hrant Dink Foundation.

Based on news reports released September and December 2012, the study evaluated the news that used ethnically or religiously discriminatory and racist expressions along with homophobic and gender-based hate speech

The study showed that news including hate speech did not only target different religious or ethnic groups. Other groups singled out for attacks included homosexuals with 63 percent, transsexuals with 32 percent and women with 5 percent.

According to the study, Istanbul is the province where hate speech is the most common.

The rate of prevalence of hate speech and hostile expressions in news reports was 42 percent, while 27 percent of the news was manipulated or biased.