Turkey deports statue insult man

A Carlisle teenager has been banned from entering Turkey for five years after drunkenly insulting the statue of a national hero, BBC reported.

Thomas Strong, 19, stripped naked and hurled insults at the statue of Ataturk, founder of Turkey, while on holiday in Marmaris, officials said.

A Turkish Embassy spokesman in London said the teenager broke a national law banning such insults.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed Strong was arrested and later deported.

The teenager was arrested by Turkish police on 16 August and deported on Wednesday after appearing before a local court.

The Turkish Embassy spokesman said there was a specific law to protect Ataturk and his reputation from being insulted or blemished.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 in Salonika (now Thessaloniki) in what was then the Ottoman Empire.

He made his military reputation repelling the Allied invasion at the Dardanelles in 1915.

In May 1919, Ataturk began a nationalist revolution in Anatolia, organising resistance to the peace settlement imposed on Turkey by the victorious Allies.

In 1921, Ataturk established a provisional government in Ankara. The following year the Ottoman Sultanate was formally abolished and, in 1923, Turkey became a secular republic with Ataturk as its president.

In 1935, when surnames were introduced in Turkey, he was given the name Ataturk, meaning Father of the Turks. He died on 10 November 1938.