Since industrial age that started in the 1930s made Balat a profitable location for settlement, the de-industrialization process that started in the 1980s drove the local community to poverty. Even though the re-structuring projects that came to agenda in the 1990s became a hope for prosperity for the local community, the improvement projects that came to agenda in the 2000s carried the concept of poverty, which is already well known by the residents, to another level: The fear of being dispossessed. Each project that promised to benefit the people has made the people even poorer.
“I was working for İMC TV. To be honest I haven’t made a legal application. Neither did I get a compensation. At first, we wanted to carry out our sit-in protests with a hunger strike. But then it was generally agreed that this might have been inconsequential. For that matter we renounced this idea.