Following the call of the Alevi Bektasi Federation, more than 500,000 Alevi labourers gathered at Kadikoy Square, Istanbul on November 8 to demand their democratic rights. The Alevi demanding "right to equal citizenship" came from different cities outside Istanbul and gathered from the morning on at three different meeting points. The rally was supported by democratic and revolutionary organisations, among them DTP , ESP -G, ODP and Partizan as well as unions such as DISK , KESK and Egitim-Sen . Sabiha Gokcen Airport workers as well as Kent A.S. workers who have been leading a resistance for months participated in the rally, too. {divide}
At the rally the Alevi underlined that they were not going to be the type of Alevi the state wants them to be. By that, they addressed a warming to the AKP government. Many banners were carried at the rally whose main demands were the abolition of religion as an obligatory lesson at school, the abolition of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the acceptance of the Cemevleri as places of worship as well as the Madimak Hotel to be made a museum. Among the banners, the banner read "In Sivas we are Alevi, with Hrant we are Armenians, and with Ape Musa we are Kurds. We are all brothers and sisters". Throughout the march from the meeting points to Kadikoy Square, the Alevi continuously shouted the slogans "The peoples are brothers and sisters, the AKP is a traitor", "Yesterday in Maras , today in Sivas, the solution is in the struggle against fascism" and "Revolt, resistance, freedom".
The rally was started with a minute of silence for those who had been murdered in Sivas. In the speeches that were held, it was stressed that the Alevi Initiative of the AKP is in fact a plan to create the Alevi of that type the state wants. The democratic demands of the Alevi labourers were also named and the rally ended with some singers performing.