Republic of Türkiye

[TR] Protest Against Decision of High Council for Audio-visual Matters

IRIS 1999-1:1/29

Claudia M. Burri

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

In order to protest against a decision of the high council for audio-visual matters (RTUK), several Turkish TV stations and producers have announced a temporary suspension of their programmes in early November. This decision was a reaction to a sanction pronounced by the council ordering the private TV station "D" to stop its operations for one day. The authority had ruled at the beginning of the week that the station had broadcast "offending and insidious" comments in a report on a female minister. A comic actor had made fun of the lacking sexual experience of the minister during a programme for the TV station. After the programme had been broadcast, the minister complained about the portrayal claiming that her personal affairs had been publicly exposed.