ANKARA
The state-run Turkish Radio Television (TRT) has denied on Saturday the main opposition party’s claims of censoring its political ad.
The CHP’s ad, where an electrical transformer, cats and similar images appear, is being aired in TRT channels since the first week of April, the network said in a statement.
The Republican Peoples Party (CHP) deputy chairman Bulent Terzcan accused the TRT on Saturday of “having created a new scandal” by not airing the CHP’s election ad. He said that the opposition party has started legal proceedings against the state-run network.
In the statement, Terzcan accused TRT of broadcasting ruling Justice and Development Party’s ads which include religious symbols and the flag, which is forbidden under Turkish law, and described the network’s directors as biased.
However, TRT said it has received a report from an official broadcasting monitor on April 10, which banned the ad for violating a Supreme Election Board decision in regard to political ads.
The network said that the in the previous elections the Board has forced many political ads off air, including those of the ruling AK Party.
The broadcasting monitor has ordered media to stop running CHP’s ad after it was found to breach the article that states ads must not contain remarks “beyond the limits of criticism” and “humiliating, insulting or defamatory remarks.”
The transformer and cat are references to last year’s local elections in March, during which power outages occurred in a number of cities. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz pointed as reason to cats causing transformers to malfunction.
Turkey will hold general elections on June 7. About 56 million Turkish citizens will vote on June 7, in the country's 25th general elections, to elect the 550 members of parliament.
