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Private Kurdish broadcasts kick off in
Turkey next week
18.3.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, March 17, 2006 (AFP) - 18h05 - Two
private regional television channels and a radio
station will start brief Kurdish-language broadcasts
for the first time in Turkey next week.
Executives from Gun TV, Soz TV and Medya FM, all
based in the mainly Kurdish southeast, signed a deal
with Turkey's broadcasting watchdog on Friday to
begin airing their programs from Thursday, Gun TV's
manager Cemal Dogan told AFP.
The existing laws limit the broadcasts to 45 minutes
a day and four hours a week for television stations
and to one hour a day and five hours a week for
radio channels, he explained.
They also require the broadcasters to run subtitles
in Turkish.
"These restrictions should be lifted," Dogan said.
"But still, this is a positive step forward -- a
small step for us but a great step for Turkey."
Under pressure to comply with the democracy norms of
the European Union, Turkey began Kurdish-language
broadcasts on state television in 2004, a
taboo-breaking move in a country where even speaking
Kurdish was banned less than 15 years ago.
Ankara has long feared that expanding Kurdish
freedoms could fuel nationalist sentiment among the
minority and embolden Kurdish rebels who have waged
a bloody campaign for self-rule in the southeast
since 1984.
Gun TV's first Kurdish-language program will be a
documentary about the cultural and historic heritage
of Diyarbakir, the main city of the southeast, where
the station is based, Dogan said.
Soz TV, also based in Diyarbakir, plans to air a
program on Kurdish traditions, while Medya FM,
broadcasting from Sanliurfa, will start with a news
bulletin and music, the Anatolia news agency
reported.
Kurdish channels broadcasting either from Europe or
neighboring northern Iraq are already widely watched
in the region, where satellite dishes have become a
fixture of the landscape.
AFP
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