Turks smash iPhones, pour coke down drain amid spat with US
Some are heeding Erdogan’s call for boycotting American goods by destroying products with sledgehammer
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ISTANBUL, Turkey — Some Turks have been responding to their president’s call to boycott US electronic goods by posting videos in which they smash iPhones with bats, hammers, and other blunt instruments.
In one video published Thursday, a man collects iPhones from several youths squatting in front of a Turkish flag, lays the devices on the ground, and pounds them with a sledgehammer. “For the motherland!” he says at one point.
In another video, a boy pours a plastic bottle of Coca Cola into a toilet in a show of repugnance for US goods.
On Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would boycott US electronic goods in retaliation for punitive sanctions by Washington against Ankara over the detention of an American pastor, raising the stakes in a spat that has seen the Turkish lira plunge to record lows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpDSiRTIg70&feature=youtu.be
“If [the United States] have the iPhone, there’s Samsung on the other side,” he said, referring to US giant Apple’s iconic phone and the top South Korean brand.
“We [also] have our Venus and Vestel,” he said about homegrown Turkish electronics brands.
Relations between the two NATO allies have plummeted in one of the worst crises in decades after the detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson on terror-related charges, sending the Turkish lira into free fall against the dollar.
The Times of Israel Community.