Media in Turkey - Outlined Format

*Media in Turkey: General

-Television: about 300 private TV stations, with over a dozen covering nation-wide

-Radio: over 1,000 private radio stations in competition with the official state broadcaster TRT (Turkish Radio and Television), which operates four national networks

-Newspapers and Periodicals: more than thirty daily newspapers distributed throughout Turkey

*No Freedom to Speak: Article 301 of Turkey’s Penal Code –scores of writers prosecuted

-One of the biggest factors preventing Turkey from joining the European Union is the country’s severe restrictions over free speech—insults to �Turkishness’ are banned by the law

-What Article 301 (effective as of June 2005) states

1) A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

2) A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.

3) In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.

4) Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

*Turkey became an EU candidate country in 1999, putting to action many reforms in different areas to match European Union requirements

-Reforms in broadcasting

-Some laws restricting the freedom of expression under which many pro-Kurdish individuals were jailed have been repealed; books about the Kurdish insurgency are starting to emerge; bans were lifted restricting Kurdish-language media broadcasts