Residents of Moda district in Istanbul meet at the Moda Pier every Friday night at 21.00 with their alcoholic drinks to protest the ending of alcohol sales at their pier since the new management.
The residents who encountered the Riot Police on August 1 for their activity say that on August 15 they were banned from the street that goes to the Moda Pier on August 15 as well.
The Manifesto of the Moda residents
The manifesto of the Moda residents describes the development in following terms:
“The management in the Moda Pier changed in July. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Bel-Tur A.Ş. started running the place. Since that time those who used to go to the place, the locals and the Kadiköy resident, have been facing an alcohol ban when they ask for beer, wine and rakı (the national drink of Turkey, similar to Ouzo) with their meals. They simply do not want to get used to this.”
“The new arrangement is used as ‘Trojan Horse’. This is the first step of the strategy against our district that was presented by the ruling party as one of the targets in the past local elections. This cannot be accepted; we are aware of it. We are also aware of that this mentality of imposition and bans that restricts the choices and divides our living spaces as the-others-and-us is translated into the ‘body symbolism’ of the ruling party.”
“The imposition and the bans should be removed”
The demands of the Moda residents who condemn this prohibitory mentality are the following:
“We demand, against the revanchist mentality that takes advantage of its own people, the end of interference in our living spaces, in our free choices”
“We are decalaring to those who pretend that they are against uniform life but are in fact trying to impose their own way with the same mandating tone that “we renounce your guardianship, your patronage, your ‘doors’. Even if alcohol was a symbol, so what?” (allusion to Prime Minister’s statement that what would it matter if the headscarf was a symbol). (EZÖ/TB)