The music video for the song “Karakol” was too much for the Turkish Broadcasting Council, RTÜK, which has censored it. The video shows love between artist Mabel Matiz and another man. The council has not made an official statement but one of the members, İlhan Taşcı, writes on Twitter that TV channels in the country have been asked not to broadcast the video. This video was censored by the Turkish Broadcasting Council because it showed the love between two men. For the past 20 years, Minister for Gender Equality Anette Trettebergstuen has seen how the rights of queers in many places in Turkey have declined. – I myself have had the pleasure of being in Turkey with the Turkish gay movement. They are more exposed to persecution, to having to live in hiding and hate crime. She believes it is important that we strongly dissociate ourselves from the election to the Turkish Broadcasting Council. Minister of Culture and Gender Equality Anette Trettebergstuen. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / Stian Lysberg Solum Matiz is one of Turkey’s biggest pop stars and openly gay. On social media, the artist thanks for all the support he has received. – I cry with joy. Thank you very much! We have many more stories to tell. Norwegian PEN responds – By encouraging TV and music channels not to play the music video, they step out of their real role and allow themselves to be used as a stick to beat an important social group in Turkey, namely LGBTQI people. Caroline Stockford tells news. She is a Turkish adviser in the freedom of expression organization Norsk PEN. She believes that RTÜK has long had problems with its independence. İlhan Taşcı of RTÜK writes that TV channels have been told not to show the video, at the same time as he criticizes the organization. Photo: Twitter – The last eight years we have seen that they deliberately go after critical journalists and content that does not correspond with the government’s conservative views. Stockford believes that RTÜK obeys the will of the authorities. – We at Norsk PEN want to remind them that their job is to reflect the diversity in society. – Censorship on assignment Stockford says that this is not the first time the Broadcasting Council has complied with the authorities’ wishes. She uses another example from earlier this year: RTÜK fined four TV channels for broadcasting a speech by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. He is one of the country’s leading opposition politicians and leader of the Social Democratic Party in Turkey. In the speech, he accused President Erdoğan and his family of deep corruption, and plans to flee the country in the event of a possible election loss in the future. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Photo: MURAD SEZER / Reuters – This is censorship on behalf of the government, Stockford believes and adds: – RTÜK’s behavior is contrary to a free and just society, and such behavior violates the people’s right to receive independent and critical broadcasting from a broad range of sources. These fines were also confirmed by Taşcı on social media, who wrote that there is a coup against freedom of expression, the right to freedom of information and democracy. It was Ilhan Tasci in RTÜK who first announced that four channels had been fined for sending the speech to Kılıçdaroğlu. Photo: Twitter news has not succeeded in getting a response to our inquiry from RTÜK.
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