People are being arrested and deported in Turkey for wearing t-shirts with the slogan “hero”.
1 more detained in Adana for wearing ‘hero’ T-shirt | Turkish Minute https://t.co/CvLTxzhyAJ pic.twitter.com/QjDN8spo23
— Turkish Minute (@TurkishMinuteTM) August 8, 2017
Turkey continues to crack down on anyone wearing HERO t-shirts. pic.twitter.com/r7wx1vlZhi
— Mahir Zeynalov (@MahirZeynalov) August 7, 2017
Turkey Purge website has reported that at least 35 people have been arrested for wearing "hero" t-shirts in the last month.
The latest was detained on Monday while drinking juice at cafe in Adana province, according to the website which was set up by exiled journalists to monitor post-coup rights abuses.
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Gökhan Güçlü, one of the suspects on trial for involvement in last year’s failed coup, sparked the sartorial crackdown after he was ejected from court on 13 July for sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the word “hero”.
Meanwhile in Erdogistan #Turkey:30ppl arrested for wearing T-shirts Hero.
— Secular Syria (@syria_true) August 7, 2017
Erdogan said all arrested will wear from now brown uniform pic.twitter.com/Uj31K5VY9k
Following the controversy, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that coup suspects would now be required to wear a brown uniform in court.
“There will be no more coming to courts wearing whatever they want,” Erdoğan said, according to the daily newspaper Hürriyet. “They will be introduced to the world like that.”
Erdoğan had previously called for defendants to be dressed in Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuits.
According to Turkey Purge, those arrested range from factory and hotel workers to university students. Many of those detained claimed that they had not been aware of the word’s meaning.
Some of them were reportedly arrested following tip-offs from members of the public.
When you live in Turkey and see a guy with "HERO" t-shirt. pic.twitter.com/1HOu51FfvH
— Emre Ayaz (@emreayazjj) August 2, 2017
The site also said that an Azerbaijan tourist had been deported from Turkey after his arrest last Wednesday for wearing the offending garment.
The manufacturer of the t-shirts has now withdrawn then from sale and ceased production following “discussions with the police”, İhlas news agency reported.
From hero to zero. #Turkey #Hero #Erdogan #tshirt pic.twitter.com/BQ2xD2b2XS
— Bart van Leeuwen (@BartOedipoes) August 6, 2017
Over 50,000 people have been arrested in a government crackdown since the coup attempt on 15 July 2016. Nearly 500 of those, including top generals and officers, appeared in court last week in the largest of a number of mass trials of coup suspects
