Turkey: Law on the flag

Last modified: 2002-07-20 by ivan sache
Keywords: law |
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On this page:

• Laws on the flag
• Current law on the flag
  • Purpose
  • Shape and Construction of the Flag
  • Hoisting and Lowering the Flag
  • Flying the Flag at Half Staff
  • Saluting the Flag
  • Places that can be covered with the Flag
  • Prohibitions
  • Sanctions
  • Charter
  • Abrogated Law
  • Validity
  • Enforcement
• Cases of infringement of the law on the flag

See also:

• Turkey

Laws on the flag

The fundamentals of the Turkish Flag were laid down by Turkish Flag Law No. 2994 of May 29, 1936 (now abrogated). Turkish Flag Regulation No. 2/7175 dated July 28, 1937, and Supplementary Regulation No. 11604/2 dated July 29, 1939, were enacted to describe how the flag law would be implemented.
The Turkish Flag Law No. 2893 dated September 22, 1983, and published in the Official Gazette on September 24, 1983, was promulgated six months after its publication. According to Article 9 of Law No. 2893, a statute including the fundamentals of the implementation was also published.

Dov Gutterman, 4 September 1999

Current law on the flag

Law #2893, adopted September 22, 1983, published in the Official Gazette September 24, 1983 No: 18171, Series 5 Volume 22, p. 599

Purpose

• Article 1 - The purpose of this Law is to identify the principles and procedures about shape, construction and protection of the Turkish flag.

  Shape and Construction of the Flag

• Article 2 - The Turkish flag shall be a red flag with a white moon - star which is in the shape and proportions shown in the attached table. The standards, the fabric and material of the making of the flag and special flags (symbolic flags, special signs, pennant, ship's pennant and official flag) are shown in the charter.

  Hoisting and Lowering the Flag

• Article 3 - Flag shall be hoisted on public associations and foundations and their abroad representatives, sea vehicles of public foundations, real and judicial persons. It shall be hoisted on vehicles of the authorities in and out of the country.
  Hoisting and lowering of the flag shall be done with ceremony. Making of the ceremony in appropriate way shall be under the responsability of the authorized chief in that place.In public associations and foundations,
  Turkish flag shall be hoisted on national holidays and general holidays, starting from holiday start and ending in the sunset of the end of the holiday. (Note: A recent modification of the law changed this rule. The flag shall now be hoisted on the official buildings all the time.)
  Permanent hoisting of the flag, the closed places in which the flag shall be placed, the places where the flag shall be used as background, the way of hoisting the flag in private places, the schedules and subjects about hosting of the flag on the vessels of the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish merchant ships are shown in the charter

  Flying the flag at half staff

• Article 4 - The Turkish flag shall be flown at half staff as a sign of mourning on November10. (Note: November 10 is the anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1938, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic).
  The other instances and time of flying the flag at half staff shall be announced by the Prime Minister.

  Saluting the flag

• Article 5 - The flag shall be saluted when hanging and lowering or during transfer of power ceremony.

  Places that can be covered with flag

• Article 6 - The coffins of former Presidents, martyrs and other civilians or soldiers who are identified in the charter; the statues of Atatürk in opening ceremonies and the desks in official oath ceremonies can be covered with the Turkish flag.
  In addition, the ways and places of usage of the flag according to national customs and traditions are shown in the charter.

  Prohibitions

• Article 7 - The Turkish flag shall be used as torn, unraveled, patched, with holes in it, dirty, faded, wrinkled or in a situation that will bruise its spiritual value.
  Except for official oath ceremonies it shall be used on desks and podiums as a cover for any purpose. It shall not be put on places where people sit or stand. The shape of the flag shall not be made to these places and similar things.
  It shall not be worn as a dress or uniform.
  Any political party, organization, society, club, association or foundation other than the public associations and those foundations that are determined in the charter shall not use the flag on their emblems, pennants, symbols or similar things that will form base or background on either side.
  The Turkish Flag shall not be insulted or shown disrespect by speech, writing, action or any other means.
  The flag shall not be torn, burned, thrown or used without care.
  Any action that is against this law and the charter shall be prevented and relevant investigation shall be performed.

  Sanctions

• Article 8 - Making, selling and using flags that is against this law and the charter is forbidden. The flags that are done against this prohibition shall be collected by the authorized chief of that place.
  People who behave against the rules of this law shall be penalized according to Article 526 of Turkish Penal Code if their crime does not require a heavier punishment.

  Charter

• Article 9 - The matters that are said to be prescribed in the charter and other principles concerning the application of the present law shall be shown in the charter that will be prepared within six months after publication of the present law.

  Abrogated Law

• Article 10 - The Law on Turkish Flag dated May 29,1936 (#2994) shall be abrogated.

  Validity

• Article 11 - This article shall become valid after six months of its publication.

  Enforcement

• Article 12 - The articles of the present law shall be enforced by the Council of Ministers.

Source: Turkish Government website, law texts (in Turkish)

Collected and translated by Onur Özgün, 1 September 2001

Cases of infringement of the law on the flag

The Swedish newspaper Metro reported that 8 shopowners in Turkey were sentenced to pay fines of 250 Millions Turkish Lira each, because they had sold t-shirts which had the Turkish flag upon them. The newspaper source were the news agencies TT and DPA.

Elias Granqvist, 14 November 2001

There weres also some news about this subject about two weeks ago in Turkish newspapers. According to Sabah, published on October 31, the attorney general of Selçuk, a district of province Izmir, initiated an investigation since children wore clothes with Turkish flag figure on the clothes on the National Day, October 29.After that , I have heard that some sellers stopped selling these t-shirts.

Onur Özgün, 15 November 2001