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Turkey: Radio Banned for 30 days for
airing a program on Kurdish issue
19.10.2006 |
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RTUK closes down
Istanbul-based radio station for airing a song of a
famous folk singer and its programs on Kurdish issue
and operations in prisons. "Anadolu'nun Sesi"
closure enforced on Tuesday on alleged "offences"
ranges back three years.
Istanbul, October 19 ,-- Turkey's Radio and
Television Supreme Council (RTUK) has broken a brief
pause in its silencing of the media imposing a
30-day closure order on an Istanbul based private
radio station for "offences" ranging back to 2003.
The closure of Anadolu'nun Sesi (Anatolia's Voice)
was to be enforced as of Tuesday is linked to its
airing of a specific song by a famous leftwing folk
singer and the radio's coverage of the Kurdish
problem as well as security operations conducted in
Turkish prisons
The RTUK orders were relayed to the station on
October 12 after its legal battle of three years to
stay open failed.
Noting this was not the first time they faced
repression, radio executives said the station had
given the right to Turkey's opposition figures to
air their voices and had covered issues and
incidents that the media monopolies chose to ignore.
One of the offences cited in the RTUK closure was an
October 7, 2003 program on the radio where folk
singer Ahmet Kaya's "I look on the world with Pride"
was aired. Subject to the decision were offending
lyrics in the song referring to a conflict and
people shot and killed.
Another broadcast RTUK punished was the December 9
2003 "Objektive" program covering the Kurdish
problem, referring openly to "the tyranny imposed on
the Kurdish people" and encouraging greater rights
and freedoms being given to the people as proposed
by the Basic Rights and Freedoms Association as a
solution to the conflict.
The final penalty was for a December 14, 2003 dated
offence in the "Halkin Sesi" (People's Voice)
program that covered the widely criticized "prison
security operations" of the time where the-then
Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk was criticized.
RTUK concluded at that time that each had contained
elements which was inciting segregation of the
society based on ethnic discrimination and
encouragement of violence - provoking the people
based on class, racial, language, sectarian and
regional differences and thereby inciting hatred and
enmity among the people.
An initial closure order was passed by RTUK in 2003
but postponed after three days when an appeal was
made by the station to an Ankara administrative
court. After the 3-day break Anadolu'nun Sesi went
back o the air until the 12th Administrative Court
of Ankara started the current closure process with a
December 26, 2005 conclusive verdict in favor of
RTUK's decision.
Radio license may be revoked
Anadolu'nun Sesi, to remain closed for a month under
the RTUK order, now also faces the threat of having
its broadcast license revoked if found "guilty" in
an inquest looking into its coverage of the "Diyarbakir
incidents" last March during the celebrations of
Newroz.
The station has recently been asked to submit a
defense for its coverage of the incidents based on
commentaries
and press reports.
RTUK provisions bring an initial closure of a
station for a period of one month without any prior
warning but also allow for that station to be closed
down indefinitely or its broadcast license be
revoked if a similar offence is committed.
bianet org
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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