A number of Radical Islamist men stormed into the Istanbul store in central Istanbul’s Firuzağa neighbourhood on Friday night, attacking group of people who gathered to celebrate the release of Radiohead’s new album.
According to reports, up to 20 men who were angry because the record store was not observing Ramadan used pipes and bottles as weapons and beat the store’s owners as well as some attendees for drinking alcohol during the holy month of Ramadan. One of the victims suffers a head injury.
A person alleging to be one of the store’s owners posted his account on Reddit, writing:
[su_quote]I am the person that’s speaking in that video. I am the owner of that periscope account. They were determined to kill us. We were beaten by more than 20 men with pipes in their hands, beer bottles were broken on our heads, I don’t even know how we made it out. I will share the details later guys. Just hoping that no one will die.[/su_quote]
A camera originally set up to stream the Radiohead event has recorded the attack. It can be seen in the recordings that the Radical Islamists threatened people not to drink alcohol there again.
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Radiohead issued a statement Friday night.
“Our hearts go out to those attacked tonight at Velvet IndieGround in Istanbul,” the band said in the statement. “We hope that someday we will be able to look back on such acts of violent intolerance as things of the ancient past. For now, we can only offer our fans in Istanbul our love and support.”