Iranian asylum seeker arrested in Turkey for hanging UK Union Flag towel out to dry

A Turkish national flag is displayed on a balcony to mark Youth and Sports Day in Istanbul, May 19, 2020. (AFP)

• Local residents cheered as 32-year-old Mohammad Reza was arrested – he pleaded his innocence saying he was only drying the wet towel and had no other intentions
• The Kayseri governorship said Reza had not given a second thought to the implications of hanging out the towel displaying the UK’s national flag

ANKARA: An Iranian asylum seeker on Wednesday triggered a nationwide row in Turkey after being arrested for hanging out a wet British Union Flag towel on his balcony.
Mohammad Reza, who fled Iran to temporarily live in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, is facing possible legal proceedings after angry neighbors complained to authorities that his actions were a provocative act.
In a statement, Kayseri governor’s office said a criminal investigation had been launched into the incident.
Local residents in the city cheered as 32-year-old Reza was arrested but he pleaded his innocence saying he was only drying the wet towel and had no other intentions.
It is not the first incident of its kind to take place in the conservative and hardline nationalist Turkish city. In 2008, during the shooting of a documentary based on different civilizations that once thrived in Anatolia, protests erupted when Byzantine flags were flown, resulting in the film’s director having to seek police assistance.
The city, a textile manufacturing hub in the country, employs numerous migrant workers, mostly refugees, in its industrial sectors.
In a follow-up statement, the Kayseri governorship said Reza had not given a second thought to the implications of hanging out the towel displaying the UK’s national flag.
“For people who know the history of Turkey, perhaps not just the incident, but also the language used by the government officials is not that surprising”, said Ugur Derin, a Turkish researcher from Netherlands’ Leiden University.
“Turkey has had a negative discourse on non-Turks and non-Muslims since the late Ottoman era, and in that sense, it is telling that the Iranian asylum seeker who hung the British-flag towel is referred to as a ‘foreigner’ in the official statements.
“The idea that foreigners are not reliable is prevalent in Turkey, and this incident brings together the symbols of two foreign nations. Therefore, the incident should be read in the light of the ever-present xenophobia in Turkey, which usually goes hand in hand with a discourse pointing to the alleged conspiracies of external powers,” he told Arab News.
“Turkey’s violent past also comes into the picture here. Although it might seem irrelevant, denial of massacres of non-Muslims seems to be playing a role here. Like many other cities, Kayseri, too, had a substantial Armenian and Greek population at the beginning of the 20th century,” Derin noted.