Turkish driver demands couple get off bus ‘for making love’

Stefan Martens ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

A driver on an Istanbul public bus demanded that the couple disembark just before reaching the last stop in Taksim. DHA photo

A driver on an Istanbul public bus attempted to force off a couple for “making love” on his vehicle on July 14 in the latest instance of public transportation officials taking exception to allegedly over-amorous displays of affection.
 
The driver of the double-decker 76E bus from Esenkent in the western district of Esenyurt demanded that the pair disembark just before reaching the last stop in Taksim, eyewitness Aslı Karadeniz told the Hürriyet Daily News today.
 
“Enough with it! Don't you think I can see you two from the camera? You are making love here! Get off, right now!” he reportedly told the couple, who were sitting next to each other on the top floor of the double-decker bus.
 
“Someone’s making love, and someone else is doing who knows what. You guys have had enough,” he said, calling the unidentified male partner a “pimp.”
 
The driver subsequently ordered everyone off the bus after it came to the last stop in Taksim.
 
The couple reportedly did not respond to the driver’s outburst due to shock.
 
The incident is not the first “morality” issue to occur on Istanbul or Turkey’s public transport system. In April 2011, a bus driver ordered a couple who were reportedly holding hands to get off his bus on the grounds that his vehicle was “not a sex bus.” A university student who went to the couple’s aid was subsequently beaten by a man as he argued with the driver. The incident also prompted other couples to stage a “kiss-in” on the same route in protest at the driver’s aggression.
 
One year later, Islamists prevented 21-year-old Yağmur Yılmaz from boarding a bus in Fatih’s Edirnekapı neighborhood because the sweatpants she was wearing “caused them to sin.”
 
Meanwhile in May, protesters at Ankara’s Kurtuluş metro station staged another “kiss-in” to protest public service announcements at the station calling for people to act “morally” following public displays of affection. The kiss-in occurred despite a counter-protest from the Anadolu Gençlik association, an Islamist youth association.