Ban on overseas travel removed after mayor’s April Fool’s joke

DİYARBAKIR - Anatolia News Agency

Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir. AA Photo

A Diyarbakır court has removed a ban preventing Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir from leaving the country, several days after the mayor himself tweeted the removal as part of an April Fools’ joke.

Baydemir said on Twitter on April 1 that the ban, which had been in place for over three years, had ended. After a short period of time, however, the mayor told his followers that it was a joke.

Nevertheless, the court overturned the ban just three days later.

Baydemir had said, following the tweet, that he wished “there would be no need to joke about this by next April 1.”

Baydemir was slapped with an overseas travel ban on Jan. 13, 2010, as part of the outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) case.