Chloé Fedio, Staff Reporter
It’s a tradition Mahmut Bak follows every year, whether he’s at home in Turkey or in Canada where he goes to school: On Oct. 29 he displays his country’s flag to celebrate independence day.
The 20-year-old mechanical engineering student says it’s especially important to hang the red flag with a white crescent and star when he’s so far from home.
And yet, for the second year in a row he’s 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.
“It’s a special day for Turkey, for Turkish people,” he said. “Why should it be a big problem? It’s not against any Canadian laws, as far as I know. I’m far away from my home and I just want to put my flag up on this special day.”
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.
Then came a memo distributed to all flag-waving residents on Tuesday.
“Could you please remove your flag from your balcony,” the note stated. “This is a result of asking the person . . . to take his Turkish one down. He is yelling discrimination.”
The superintendant of 1265 Pentland St., who would only identify herself as Diane, said she distributed the note at the request of management.
“The 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,” she said.
The order outraged many patriotic residents who want to show pride for the country they live in.
Gerald Ash was asked to take down the small Canadian flag he had affixed to the inside of his balcony with a plastic tie.
“I just had a little one, the kind you fly outside your car. I’ve 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’s ridiculous,” Ash said.
But now, two days after the memo went out, management says it’s 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.
She sent Ash an email Thursday stating that management “does not, nor has it ever had, anything against properly displayed flags on tenant balconies.”
It’s good news for Ash who’s eager to put his flag back up for Remembrance Day in honour of his great-grandfather who fought in World War I.
But Bak has received no such email.
“It wasn’t damaging anything. It wasn’t blocking anyone’s balcony,” he said. “I was told Canada was a multicultural country, a free country. There shouldn’t be any problem with the flag of any country.”
, Nov 04 2010
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