Due to license for online program
Turkey threatens to block Deutsche Welle
2/9/2022 5:33 p.m
Is Ankara taking Moscow’s example? After the Kremlin banned Deutsche Welle from Russia, Turkey is considering blocking the foreign broadcaster’s online programming. The official reason is a missing license. But the opposition senses another motive.
Deutsche Welle is threatened with blocking its online program in Turkey. The broadcaster must apply for a license for content published on the website, said the vice-president of the Turkish Broadcasting Authority Ibrahim Uslu. Otherwise, the broadcaster’s offer from Turkey will no longer be available.
According to Uslu, the decision of the broadcasting authority RTÜK on Wednesday will be published on its website within seven to ten days. From then on, the broadcaster has 72 hours to apply for the license. The Turkish branches of the US foreign broadcaster “Voice of America” and the European broadcaster “Euronews” are also affected. The latest decision is based on a regulation that came into force in 2019, Uslu said. This has “nothing to do with censorship” but is part of technical measures.
At that time, the government had introduced far-reaching regulations to control Internet platforms that distribute films, videos or radio content. Representatives close to the government have a majority in the RTÜK body. Turkish media are largely under the direct or indirect control of the government, and Internet content is also subject to strict regulation.
Edogan has threatened foreign media
It is the first time that the regulation has now been applied against foreign news platforms, wrote Ilhan Tasci, a member of the Turkish broadcasting authority RTÜK for the opposition party CHP, on Twitter. He criticized the decision as censorship. Erdogan recently threatened to take action against media content that contradicts “national” and “moral” values.
The office of Deutsche Welle in Moscow was only closed on Friday after Russia had issued a ban on broadcasting the day before. The station had a license there. Employees had to hand in their accreditations. Russia’s step is a reaction to a broadcast ban by German media regulators for the German-language TV program RT DE, which was launched in mid-December by the Russian state medium RT.