As it celebrated its thirty years of existence next month, Open Radio (Open radio
) is now closed. The High Council for Radio and Television, a body very close to power, decreed, on Friday October 11, the closure of the frequency granted to the station. This radio station was sanctioned on the grounds that the expression of Armenian genocide
was employed during one of its programs and refused to apply
a five-day suspension of this show.
The sanction which hits this Istanbul radio station which has more than a million listeners and places emphasis on civil society, ecology, women’s rights
is a big blow for the Turkish media landscape. We were the last independent FM radio station; it is the right of our listeners to access information that is called into question,”
says Ilksen Mavituna, editor-in-chief.
The loss of frequency is irremediable. However, the collaborators of this media, financed more than 50% by its listeners, intend to continue to broadcast their content on the internet, even if they know that they will lose some of their listeners, particularly the older ones.
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The Islamo-nationalist power of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a campaign of control and censorship of dissident voices for 10 years.
There is a clear intention on the part of those in power to reduce media plurality, already very diminished in recent years, and to make only one official speech heard.
estimates Erol önderoglu, representative in Türkiye of the NGO Reporters Without Borders. Fines against the rare opposition television channels and refusals to grant press cards to opposition journalists are increasing. Just like defamation trials, for insult to the President of the Republic
and even for terrorist propaganda
. This last accusation mainly concerns Kurdish journalists, like Serhildan Andan, arrested Friday October 11 at his home in Diyarbakir, the large Kurdish city in the east of the country.
We are also seeing more and more detailed threats against journalists, especially investigative journalists, who delve into corruption cases or who take too close an interest in religious brotherhoods or those close to those in power.
deplores Erol önderoglu. This is the case of journalist Murat Agirel, victim of death threats, or of journalist Sule Aydin, regularly harassed on the networks and target of threats of sexual violence, such as on October 11 on the exterior wall of her apartment.
