The president of the Chamber of Istanbul Taxi Businesses has accused Uber of being a targeted attack on his industry carried out by what he called “the Jewish lobby”, Turkish Jewish newspaper Şalom said.

“The global thieving Jewish lobby is carrying out commercial taxi piracy in Turkey,” Eyüp Aksu told a crowd of anti-Uber protesters outside an Istanbul courthouse.

He said the Turkish media were joining in, attacking taxi drivers with biased articles.

“While taxi drivers’ protests in European countries have caused destruction right and left, we do not want to carry out such a demonstration here,” Aksu said.

“If our parliament does not do the necessary work on this issue or if the judiciary gives a differing verdict, taxi small businesses will run out of patience.”

Taxi drivers would “do anything” to preserve their livelihoods, Aksu said.

“Our livelihoods are as important as our honour,” he added.

The chamber’s petition says that Uber’s systems make it almost impossible to log the factors for which ordinary Istanbul taxi drivers are taxed, meaning that they do not pay the taxes and represent unfair competition.