{"id":24904,"date":"2010-11-06T19:41:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T17:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=24904"},"modified":"2023-07-26T12:13:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T09:13:48","slug":"turkish-man-forced-to-remove-flag-from-apartment-balcony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/11\/06\/turkish-man-forced-to-remove-flag-from-apartment-balcony\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish man forced to remove flag from apartment balcony"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Mahmut Bak was not given a reason why management of his Oshawa apartment building ordered him to remove the Turkish flag hanging outside his balcony window. CHLO\u00c9 FEDIO\/TORONTO STAR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chlo\u00e9 Fedio,\u00a0Staff Reporter<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tradition Mahmut Bak follows every year, whether he\u2019s at home in Turkey or in Canada where he goes to school: On Oct. 29 he displays his country\u2019s flag to celebrate independence day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 20-year-old mechanical engineering student says it\u2019s especially important to hang the red flag with a white crescent and star when he\u2019s so far from home.<\/p>\n

And yet, for the second year in a row he\u2019s been forced by management to take it down from the window of his fourth-floor apartment in Oshawa. He has never been given a reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a special day for Turkey, for Turkish people,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy should it be a big problem? It\u2019s not against any Canadian laws, as far as I know. I\u2019m far away from my home and I just want to put my flag up on this special day.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first he resisted, pointing out that Canadian flags were hanging on the balconies of several apartments in the two 12-storey towers on Pentland St., both owned by Valiant Property Management.<\/p>\n

Then came a memo distributed to all flag-waving residents on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould you please remove your flag from your balcony,\u201d the note stated. \u201cThis is a result of asking the person . . . to take his Turkish one down. He is yelling discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The superintendant of 1265 Pentland St., who would only identify herself as Diane, said she distributed the note at the request of management.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building has just undergone huge, tremendous renovations and it was unsightly. It was a huge red flag in the middle of the living room window, in the middle of the balcony. It was very ungodly to look at,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The order outraged many patriotic residents who want to show pride for the country they live in.<\/p>\n

Gerald Ash was asked to take down the small Canadian flag he had affixed to the inside of his balcony with a plastic tie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had a little one, the kind you fly outside your car. I\u2019ve been here seven and a half months and no one has said squat about it. Now, all of a sudden, some guy puts a Turkish flag up and I have to take mine down. That\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Ash said.<\/p>\n

But now, two days after the memo went out, management says it\u2019s all a big misunderstanding. Erika Bradbury, a senior property manager for Valiant, said the policy has always been that residents cannot make holes in the building exterior to hang any object and that items cannot dangle over the balcony edge.<\/p>\n

She sent Ash an email Thursday stating that management \u201cdoes not, nor has it ever had, anything against properly displayed flags on tenant balconies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good news for Ash who\u2019s eager to put his flag back up for Remembrance Day in honour of his great-grandfather who fought in World War I.<\/p>\n

But Bak has received no such email.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t damaging anything. It wasn\u2019t blocking anyone\u2019s balcony,\u201d he said. \u201cI was told Canada was a multicultural country, a free country. There shouldn\u2019t be any problem with the flag of any country.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>, Nov 04 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chlo\u00e9 Fedio,\u00a0Staff Reporter It\u2019s a tradition Mahmut Bak follows every year, whether he\u2019s at home in Turkey or in Canada where he goes to school: On Oct. 29 he displays his country\u2019s flag to celebrate independence day. The 20-year-old mechanical engineering student says it\u2019s especially important to hang the red flag with a white crescent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[491],"tags":[4164,4163],"class_list":["post-24904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canada-north-america-english","tag-turkish-flag","tag-turkish-independence-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}