VIDEO: Irish-Kuwaiti tourist beats army of Turkish shopkeepers, declared hero on social media
ISTANBUL
An Irish citizen has been captured on video beating up an army of Istanbul shopkeepers after he was attacked with sticks and stools. After the footage emerged, the man was declared a hero on social media. The Kuwait-born tourist, Mohammed Fadel Dobbous, went to a local market in Istanbul’s Aksaray neighborhood to get a bottle of water, before accidentally toppling all the bottles in a refrigerator after opening the door.
The owner of the shop immediately intervened, holding a stick to threaten the tourist.
Around 15 shopkeepers then came to the shop owner’s support carrying different tools, ranging from sticks to stools.
However, the Irish tourist can then be seen beating up the army of Turkish shopkeepers one by one, parrying blows as they hurled stools and sticks at him.
It later came to light that the Irish tourist had in fact been a professional boxer.
“You deceive shopkeepers saying they are policemen and powerful as lions. Here, they ran into a boxer. Couldn’t they find a little Korean?” Turkish singer Atilla Taş asked, referring to the Korean tourists who were attacked by a group of nationalists. The nationalists were protesting the Chinese treatment of Uighurs and confused the Korean tourists for Chinese.
Taş's remark was also a veiled criticism to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had bestowed "a volunteer mission" on tradesmen throughout Turkey to act as law enforcement officers and judges if necessary.
“You motivate yourself saying ‘one Turk can take over the world’ your entire life. Then one Irish man comes and beats you all. Now this is drama,” a parody account wrote on Twitter.
“Should we write a novel titled ‘The Irish tourist?’” famous Turkish novelist Ahmet Ümit inquired.
The online support for the Irish tourist is a result of ongoing social tension in Turkey, with this instance of shopkeeper violence considered the latest in a series.
In July, a shopkeeper in Turkey’s western province of İzmir was sued over allegedly beating a Syrian child. Previously, in February, a journalist was stabbed to death by an angry shopkeeper because his snowball hit the tradesman’s window during a playful snowball fight with friends.
