This weekend, a group of demonstrators in Istanbul angry about Russian airstrikes in Syria ended up protesting outside the Dutch consulate instead of the nearby Russian one. The group were reportedly upset in particular about the strikes taking place on ethnic Turkmen-controlled villages in the war-torn country.
The Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey had summoned Russia's ambassador to protest what they say are attacks targeting civilians.
This week's demonstrators are thought to have been from the nationalist organizations the Idealist Hearths and the Alperen Hearths.
The Dutch consul-general Robert Schuddeboom rather humorously tweeted about the situation.
Often angry Turkish demonstrators mistake us for our close neighbors (Russian Consulate).Like tonight, throwing eggs pic.twitter.com/91ltg7yjf6
— Robert Schuddeboom (@rschuddeboom) November 20, 2015
This is apparently not the first time protesters in Turkey have mistaken their targets.
In July, it was reported that demonstrators angry about the Chinese government’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority attacked a Chinese restaurant. It turned out to be owned by a Turk, and worse still the chef was in fact an Uighur Muslim.
In another case, a group of Korean tourists were almost attacked after being mistaken for Chinese nationals. In this case, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party—which is linked to the Idealist Hearths—allegedly defended the protesters saying that it was hard to differentiate between the two as both have “slanted eyes."
