Turkey’s so-called mainstream news channels NTV, Habertürk, and CNNTürk did not broadcast on Saturday the first election rally of the Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate Muharrem İnce.
According to a report by online news outlet Ahval, Turkey’s biggest private media organisation CNNTurk was officially handed over to its new staunchly pro-government owners in early April and since then personnel changes continue. Other news networks of NTV and Habertürk became the pro-government broadcasting outlets in recent years despite their secular background.
Many criticised on social media the censorship against İnce. CHP deputy mentioned the tv channels on Twitter and asked whether they would broadcast the rally or not. “You hide from the nation the presidential candidate of the second largest party in the Parliament,” a twitter user said.
“Don’t say you heard it from me, but Muharrem İnce held a rally today. Let me inform you dear news channels,” another one said.
Meanwhile, an interview with CHP candidate İnce to be published on Sunday in pro-government Hürriyet daily was cancelled at the last minute by the newspaper’s executive officials, ODA TV reported on Saturday.
Hürriyet daily, once known as the flagship of Turkish press, belongs to Doğan Media, which was bought by pro-government Demirören Group in March.
ODA TV also reported that the executives of CNNTürk news channel, also belonging to the same group, were unhappy with the channel broadcasting CHP’s ceremony on Friday during which the party announced İnce’s candidacy. The channel did not broadcast İnce’s first election rally today.
CNN Turk parted ways with general director Erdoğan Aktaş on Friday, media news site Medyatava reported. According to Medyatava, Bora Bayraktar, a veteran journalist and a middle east expert, will be the new general director of the news channel, belonging to Doğan Media, which was bought by the pro-government Demirören Group in March.
Before transferring to CNN Turk in 2015, Aktaş was working as the general director of the aHaber news channel, belonging to pro-government Turkuaz Group.
His likely successor Bora Bayraktar early this year shared a tweet with a picture of famous actor Ben Affleck in military uniform, claiming that the person in the picture was Eddie Brandon from the US special forces, who was killed during Turkey’s military offense in Syria when fighting alongside Kurdish militia. “See whom Turkey is against, whom it fights,” wrote Bora Bayraktar. Bayraktar’s twitter account @Bora_Bayraktar is currently inactive.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday. If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 254 journalists and media workers were in jail as of May 3, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 192 were under arrest pending trial while only 62 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 142 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down about 200 media outlets, including Kurdish TVs and papers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-so-called-mainstream-news-channels-censor-main-oppositions-presidential-candidate/
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder