An Iranian national living in Turkey’s Kayseri province was briefly taken into police custody on Wednesday morning after complaints from his neighbors that he hung a towel with a British flag on it on his balcony, Turkish media reported.
Yesterday was the 101st anniversary of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s journey from İstanbul to Samsun to start the four-year-long War of Independence.
Turks are invited to recite the national anthem accompanied by Turkish flags at 19:19 local time to mark the anniversary, this year under a curfew due to coronavirus measures, the Kayseri Governor’s Office said in a statement.
When some people saw the towel on the balcony, they called police to complain, thinking that the Iranian man, Mohammed Reza K., put it there intentionally, the statement said.
However, Mohammed Reza K. told police that he only hung the towel out to dry it.