A Turkish court on Tuesday has accepted an request by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) to shutdown the TELE1 TV channel. As a result, the channel will be temporarily suspended for one week, starting from 6 August.
The decision to shut down TELE1 was initially taken by RTÜK after the editor-in-chief, Merdan Yanardağ, criticised the government’s handling of Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Öcalan’s, situation. Yanardağ alleged that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was using the imprisonment of Öcalan as a tool to suppress both Kurdish and Turkish opposition, leading to his arrest.
TELE1 had previously appealed against the closure and succeeded in obtaining a temporary halt on the decision. However, RTÜK took the matter to a higher court, resulting in a reversal of the previous ruling and paving the way for the channel’s closure to be implemented.
