SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A private Turkish TV station that aired pro-Kurdish opposition views has shut down less than a month, according to AFP.
AFP reported that Olay TV, owned by businessman and former minister Cavit Caglar, began broadcasting on November 30 but was pulled off the air on Friday.
AFP cited Caglar as saying that he had pulled out of the venture because the station’s editorial line veered too close to the pro-Kurdish opposition, while the editor claimed he had bowed to government pressure.
Executive editor Suleyman Sarilar said on air that the network had aimed to maintain equal distance from every segment in Turkey’s polarized society, the news agency reported.
“But we have seen that we can no longer keep up with this kind of broadcasting … Cavit [Caglar] said he was under intense pressure from the government and that he cannot move forward,” AFP quoted Sarilar as saying.
Caglar said in a statement that Olay TV abandoned impartiality and was close to the line of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – accused by the government of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“I have been active in centre-right politics and served this country. I was unsettled by the broadcasts of Olay TV’s editorial team,” he said.
He said he offered to create more balance as the channel moved “from impartial to HDP broadcasting”, but his business partner rejected his ideas.
“I informed him that I would not be able to continue under those circumstances and had to leave the network,” he said.
Dozens of HDP mayors and officials have been jailed in the past year over the party’s suspected links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Turkey is among the world’s worst countries for jailing journalists, ranked 154 out of 180 countries ranked by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Most of Turkey’s mainstream media is owned by relatives or allies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to AFP.
