Tunisia: Demands to dismiss minister confused between Tunisian and Turkish flags

The Tunisian minister of youth and sports has been criticized for sparking confusion between her country’s flag and the Turkish flag, which prompted a number of activists to demand her dismissal.

Social media activists circulated pictures of the minister of youth and sports, Sonia Ben Sheikh, raising  the Turkish flag instead of the Tunisian one, to celebrate Tunisia’s qualification to the semi-finals of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations

The poet Saif Ammar Al-Maidani wrote: “The time has come when my homeland’s honour is disgraced… The minister of Youth and Sports Sonia Ben Sheikh is unable to discriminate between the flag of her country and the Turkish flag!”

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Activist Fatma Hattab addressed Ben Sheikh saying: “If you do not know the meaning of your country’s flag, you will never be able to feel the burden your homeland is carrying. You will never be able to memorize its history, which has been written with blood. If you do not know the meaning of the flag, be sure that you do not belong to this land and you cannot consider it your homeland.”

Other activists expressed regret for the incident, saying: “There is neither strength nor power save in Allah.”

Earlier, MP Maher Al-Madhioub has been overwhelmingly criticized after posting a picture of the Turkish President and Turkey’s flag on his personal Facebook account in order to celebrate Erdogan’s victory in the presidential elections.

The Turkish flag is red with a white crescent and a star in the middle, while the Tunisian flag is red with a white circle in the middle of which a five-ray star surrounded by a red crescent.