Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç asked a local singer not to sing the folk song “Vardar Ovası” because the song contained the word “rakı” in the lyrics created new debate.
Turkish popular crime ficton writer Ahmet Ümit tweeted about rakı and saying, “If you remove rakı from life, neither the joy of conversation, nor friendship, nor the evening, nor a full moon, nor love… #direnrakı (#resistrakı).”
Ahmet Ümit began receiving critism after the tweet, with some starting the campaign, “we are not buying Ahmet Ümit’s books” (AhmetÜmitKitaplarıAlmıyoruz).