Taxi drivers halt traffic in Turkey’s Bodrum after arrest of colleague for beating Uber driver

BODRUM

Hundreds of taxi drivers have blocked a main road in the southwestern Turkish resort city of Bodrum to protest the detention of one of their colleagues who are accused of beating a Uber driver.

Local media reported nearly 800 taxi drivers halted their cars on the road between Bodrum and Milas on July 25 for the protest.

A taxi driver was detained by the police in the Yalıkavak district of Bodrum for assaulting an Uber driver early July 25.

Taxi drivers, who blocked the road around noon near the Torba intersection, demanded the release of their colleague, while also calling authorities to impose “the Uber ban” in the Muğla province, which Bodrum is a part of.

Bodrum Chamber of Drivers chair Hasan Kablı addressed the protesters and told them Uber should be banned in Bodrum “but blocking the road is not a solution.”

After 45 minutes, Kablı and policemen convinced the protesters to open one lane of the road.

“Istanbul does not have Uber anymore, but Bodrum has around 1,000 [Uber cars],” a taxi driver told journalists during the protest, describing the mobile service as “pirate transportation that evades taxes.”

After a series of violent attacks by taxi drivers on Uber drivers, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had intervened on June 1, heralding an end to Uber in Turkey.

“That business is now over. There is no such thing anymore,” he said.

Prime Minister Binalı Yıldırım also said the Uber dispute “is finished” and it is the government’s duty to remove the ride-sharing app’s network.

Since then, the number of Uber cars in Istanbul have significantly decreased.

However, as Turkey experiences a fruitful tourism season, it seems many UBER cars have moved from Istanbul to summer resorts.