Turkey's Interior Ministry excludes Valentine's Day flower deliveries from weekend curfew
Turkey's Interior Ministry excluded flower deliveries from the nationwide weekend curfew around Valentine's Day. Florists will be able to work on Feb. 13 and 14, a Saturday and Sunday.
Duvar English
Turkey's Interior Ministry excluded flower deliveries from the weekend curfew preceding and including Valentine's Day in a Feb. 4 decree, released well in advance for the Feb. 14 holiday.
Florists will be excluded from the curfew until midnight on Feb. 12, the Friday before Valentine's Day, and will be allowed to deliver to homes between 10 a.m. and midnight on Feb. 13 and 14.
Flower deliveries to offices will also be allowed between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Valentine's Day and the day before, adding to the exclusions made for flowers during the nationwide COVID-19 curfew.
The government issued nationwide weekend lockdowns and partial weekday curfews to combat the second wave of COVID-19 infections in Turkey during the fall.
Ankara's leniency toward floral deliveries on Valentine's Day is a stark contrast to their stance toward New Year's Eve when a four-day curfew was implemented, fines were issued and police forces were on duty all night to ensure no celebrations took place.
The holiday dedicated to celebrating "love" also coincides with homophobic rhetoric invading Ankara's agenda, as Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ally Devlet Bahçeli all took their turn spewing hate speech at Turkey's queer community.