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Removal of Turkish flag stokes anti-Kurdish sentiments

Turkey is in an upheaval over the removal of its flag from a military base.
A masked Kurdish protestor try to pull down a Turkish flag on June 8, 2014 in Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey, after a man was killed during clashes with Turkish soldiers the night before in Lice. Two Kurdish protesters have died of gunshot wounds sustained during fierce clashes with Turkish soldiers in the country's southeast on June 7. Three people, including two soldiers, were hospitalised after the demonstrators opened fire, hurled stones and fireworks at security forces, according to an AFP reporter on the
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Flags have special meaning in every country, but the sensitivity to flags is so extreme in Turkey that a person accused of insulting the Turkish flag could face death. Although Turkish protesters frequently burn flags of countries whose actions they do not approve of, when it comes to their own flag, the taboo is insurmountable.

Turkey’s not-so-distant-past is laden with the tragedies of people accused of having insulted the flag. One of the first that comes to mind occurred in Cyprus in 1996, when Solomos Solomou, while participating in a funeral procession, began climbing a pole in the buffer zone to lower the Turkish flag. The five bullets that hit him killed him. Were it not for similar incidents in Turkey, Solomos' death might have been attributed to traditional animosity between Turkey and Greece, but such was not the case.

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