ANKARA, 9 May 2005 — Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog has come under fire for banning four adult television channels, with critics charging that the move flouted the country’s efforts to expand individual liberties in its quest to join the European Union.
The Higher Board of Radio and Television announced its decision to take off air Playboy TV, Adult TV, Exotica TV and Rouge TV on Friday, saying that broadcasts should “conform with the public interest ... and the national, moral, human, spiritual and cultural values of the Turkish nation.”
The board chairman denied suggestions that the ban might have been imposed under pressure from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, a conservative movement with Islamist roots, while officials from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) also joined the critics.
The four banned channels were broadcast late at night on a private network and were available only to subscribers. “If certain people pay money to watch programs with sexual content, this is their personal choice,” senior AKP member Faruk Celik told the mass-selling Hurriyet newspaper yesterday. “This choice concerns not the society but the people who buy that service,” he said. “Their liberty should not be restricted.”
Saner Ayar, manager of the popular television station Show TV, said the ban would tarnish the country’s image abroad.
