Disney+ will be called to the Turkish parliament to testify on the reason for its decision to cancel a series on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.
Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) Chairman Ebubekir Şahin said the company was under investigation, and would be required to submit a defence.
“The claims of Armenian lobby interventions are being meticulously investigated,” Şahin said.
The streaming giant had announced the original series titled Atatürk in early July, saying it would be broadcast on 29 October, which marks the “100th year of our republic”. The series depicted the post-World War I collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the republic.
A month later, on 31 July, Armenian news website 301 announced the series would “wisely” not be aired, and that it was cancelled upon pressure from the Armenian community over the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) “made it clear (that) Disney’s series portrayal of a war criminal (was) unacceptable”, the outlet said.
“What has been done to Atatürk has been done to 85 million people,” Turkish Parliamentary Commission for Digital Media Chairman and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) MP Hüseyin Yayman said on Thursday. “When the parliament opens again, we will do everything in our power to ban Disney+.”
Among possible penalties for Disney are licence cancelation, bandwidth throttling, and an advertising ban, according to Yayman.
“A US-based series/film platform bowing to Armenian lobby pressure and remove Atatürk series before it was broadcast is shameful,” AKP Spokesman Ömer Çelik said. “This so-called genocide network instrumentalises historical events for their politics of lies.”
The series was originally planned as a six-parter for Disney+, but now will be broadcast as two feature films on FOX, which has been owned by the Walt Disney Co. since 2019 along with the global 20th Century Fox brand, and in theatres in Turkey, according to a statement by Disney and production company Lanistar Media.
