At least 11 Syrians will have to leave Turkey and others, under investigation, could follow them.
Their crime?
Incitement to hatred and insult to the Turkish people.
After receiving complaints, Turkish police deemed videos in which young Syrians portray themselves eating bananas as "provocative".
It all started with an excerpt from a micro-sidewalk shot in Istanbul that went viral on social networks.
In the video, a Turkish man attacks a Syrian student, sharply criticizing her for buying "kilos of bananas" when he does not even have enough to "eat just one".
Another woman intervenes and accuses the Syrians of living quietly in Turkey rather than returning to fight in their country.
The student can explain that she has nowhere to go in Syria, nothing helps.
Derision in the face of xenophobia
To denounce this ordinary xenophobia that many endure, young Syrians in Turkey have chosen the derision - by pasting the sound of the interview in question on videos of them eating bananas.
The short satirical video published by Syrian journalist Majed Shamaa led to his arrest.
Turkish authorities arrested an Orient channel journalist, Majed Shamaa, for a funny video in which he asked Syrians in Istanbul what they thought about the Turkish outrage over the banana videos.
pic.twitter.com/ih3gQUjuRl
- Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) October 31, 2021
At present, he is still detained in Gaziantep.
Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have mobilized in his favor.
URGENT - Syrian journalist Majed Shama (@OrientNews), currently in Gaziantep, faces deportation to #Syria, where he is threatened by the government.
Turkish authorities blame him for treating with derision a controversy on social media amid tensions between Turks and Syrians.
pic.twitter.com/GchfGbeBJr
- RSF (@RSF_inter) November 3, 2021
Other Syrians had fun hijacking Turkish banknotes or even the national flag.
Others seem to be amused by the economic difficulties encountered by the country by cutting a banana into pieces to share with the family.
Bazı Suriyeli kullanıcılar ise Türk Lirası'nın dolar karşısındaki değer kaybının ardından "Muz" görseli bulunan banknotlar paylaşmaya başladı.
pic.twitter.com/QMKyjwHH98
- Aykırı (@aykiricomtr) October 25, 2021
In this time of economic hardship, the banana videos have not amused Turks - especially those who complain that Syrian and Afghan refugees are taking their jobs.
"The real problem is the danger they represent for Turkey's future," said a Turkish columnist.
A burden for Erdogan
Ten years ago, Turkey opened its doors wide to populations fleeing the war and the repression of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but it did not expect the refugees to stay that long.
Since then, the economic situation has steadily worsened and the gap has widened between Syrians and Turks.
A situation which explains why Turkey is so reluctant today to accept new refugees, like Afghans, on its soil.
Politically, the Syrians in Turkey have become a burden on Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party, the AKP.
And the CHP, the opposition party, is taking advantage.
In a country where the share of foreign births remains very low compared to the OECD average, it is he who most embodies Turkish resentment towards foreigners.
At the end of September, the governor of Bolu, in the north-west of the country, imposed a curfew on migrants from his town to encourage them to "respect the culture and traditions of Turkish society".
A few months earlier, the mayor of this city, also CHP, had created controversy by proposing to make foreigners pay more for water.
Party president Kemal Kiliçdaroglu keeps repeating that he wants to send "his Syrian brothers" home.
>> To read also, on the site of the Observers of France 24: "'A nightmare night': a neighborhood of Syrians attacked in Ankara after a deadly brawl"
The war in Syria was initially an electoral boost for the AKP.
Ankara's military operations against Syrian Kurds boosted Recep Tayyip Erdogan's popularity, while the Turkish president's openness to Syrian refugees was seen within his electoral base as a sign that he embodied new leadership. Turkish - humane and generous - on the Muslim world.
But Erdogan's popularity has been damaged by the economic crisis, and many Turks have lost their sense of humor.
And for the Syrian refugees who will be deported from Turkey, the banana affair is no longer a joke.
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