Istanbul’s famous tourist area, Istiklal Street is widely known for its multicultural environment where you can see people from many different ethnic groups, countries, or even continents while walking down the street.

One of the central aspects of this multi cultural environment is the many street musicians you come across. Visitors and tourists can listen to all sorts of cultural music in Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, English, French on Istiklal Street.

However, what happened on the 7th of July 2020, did not fit in with this tolerant and entertaining atmosphere when Beyoğlu Municipality city police forces attacked musicians simply for singing Kurdish songs also attacking a journalist who was recording the incident.

The police stopped the musicians from singing and confiscated the band’s musical instruments.

Journalist Hakan Tosun published a video of the incident on his Twitter account. When the police saw him recording the incident, they also attacked the journalist, demanding that he stop recording and confiscated his press card.

In the video, the musicians are heard shouting, “We don’t do anything illegal, we don’t sell drugs, we just make art, art cannot be silenced”