I'd rather starve than work. Istanbul police, who conduct sporadic inspections of restaurants and bars, did not say why they targeted the Friday's restaurant, though it is considered to have a more liberal atmosphere than most eateries and has a higher percentage of women on its staff. In a country in which television is strictly controlled by state censors, the Internet has become a particularly threatening medium for some officials, prompting the Interior Ministry to issue regulations governing the 4,500 Internet cafes. Governmenials estimate the number of Internet users leapt from 200,000 in 1997 to 2 million in 1999. Kirikkale, an industrial town of about 250,000 people in Turkey's central heartland, has 22 Internet cafes, most of them opened within the past few months.
Teenage boys say the hours they once passed on basketball courts are now spent at the keyboard.
Other traditional youth hangouts have also been hit hard. Andic opened his own Internet cafe adjacent to his pool hall. Even though his family has a computer at home, Dogan said he goes to public Internet facilities to be with his friends. Police Director Hayrettin Gok said he began getting complaints from teachers and parents that youngsters were playing hooky to go to the Internet cafes to play shoot 'em-up games, surf for cyber dates and look at pornographic Web sites. So, during school hours on the afternoon of Jan. 8, Gok dispatched teams of plainclothes officers in unmarked cars to 32 Internet cafes and video game arcades.