Turkey: Boycott cafes and restaurants for their exorbitant prices

A call to boycott cafes and restaurants seems to have had a great response in Turkey, on the grounds that they charge exorbitant prices. Many citizens mobilized last weekend, in the first action of its kind after years of endless inflation, reports AFP.

Iris Cibre, a financial expert and initiator of this boycott call, which started only for this weekend, called the mobilization a “people’s movement” after organizing it through social networks in which hundreds of thousands participated.

On Saturday and Sunday, cafes and restaurants in some neighborhoods of Istanbul and Ankara had low numbers of customers, while others were frequented only by tourists.

Protest against “opportunistic” traders

For Iris Cibre, the trigger was the 880 pounds (25 euros) she paid in mid-April for a meal and coffee at a neighborhood bistro she frequented in Istanbul.

“Ten months ago I paid 345 pounds (almost 10 euros) for the same dish and a coffee. This means an increase of 155% calculated in pounds. Even in dollars the increase is 80%. I have never experienced such inflation,” says Iris Cibre.

This was the moment when Iris Cibre decided to send a call on social network X to boycott cafes and restaurants in Turkey on April 20 and 21 to protest the “excessive prices”. His call was followed by hundreds of thousands of internet users, who in turn complained about “a soup that costs 200 pounds (almost six euros)” or a kebab that costs 300 pounds (8.6 euros).

The price increase reported by Iris Cibre it exceeds official inflation, which in March was 68.5% at an annual rate, but also the data presented by independent economists, according to which in March annual inflation in Turkey was 124.6%. THE minimum net salary in Turkey is 17,000 pounds (489 euros).

But there were also people who criticized the boycott. “I don’t think these kinds of initiatives will change things. I understand the merchants too, they have to deal with the rent increase,” says Sabit Gul, an employee at a pharmaceutical company in Ankara.

In the face of these criticisms, Iris Cibre recalled the fact that she publicly criticized the monetary policies pursued by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the past. Contrary to classical economic theories, the Turkish head of state has long advocated cutting interest rates in a context of high inflation, which analysts say has fueled inflation and the depreciation of the lira.

“The bad policies of the Government have prepared the ground for the opportunism of traders…. Of course we don’t want them to go bankrupt. We just want reasonable prices, in line with inflation,” added Iris Cibre.

Source: Hotnews.ro

Translation: Michaela Lambrinidou

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