A ten -day suspension of broadcasting today was imposed on a Turkish opposition friendly to “incitement to public hatred and hostility”, the Turkish RTük broadcasting Authority announced today, amid mass anti -government protests in the country.
Sözcü TV, which was recently fined, “was sentenced to a 10 -day suspension”, the Authority stressed, threatening that it would recall the permission of the television station “If the violations are repeated”.
RTük also imposed fines and suspended some programs on three other critical television stations in the government, including Halk TV, five of whose journalists were arrested in late January with a charge of attempting to influence justice. The journalists were finally released.
“The strictest sanctions in his history (…) were adopted at today’s RTük Supreme Council meeting,” Ilhan Takci, a member of RTük appointed by the opposition, sentenced to X.
Eleven arrests of journalists
The Turkish authorities arrested eleven journalists, including a photojournalist of the French Agency, following the launch of mass anti -government demonstrations, triggered by the arrest and detention of Constantinople’s opposition mayor.
Six of these arrested journalists were released today by a prison in Istanbul, while the French agency’s photojournalist was to be released later today. Two others had been released after being put under police detainees in Constantinople and Smyrna, the country’s third largest city, where two journalists still remain in custody, according to the Turkish Human Rights Defense Association.
The BBC earlier complained today that a journalist was deported by Turkey, after authorities there accused him of being a “threat to public order” in the country.
Many journalists have been arrested in Turkey in recent days while covering the demonstrations banned by authorities in many major cities.
