Türkiye

Turkey is a Middle Eastern country that primarily worships Islam.

General censorship

The Turkish government of Erdoğan tends to silence their critics. TRT is a mouthpiece of the Turkish government where criticism is not allowed. Turkey has a very large jail of journalists.

Internet censorship

Turkey's mass censorship of Internet sites which the government does not like has taken to the next level, threatening online journalists and imposing a system monitoring its people's internet activity. An internet filtration system was later put officially in place, which the government says it is in place to protect children from watch porn, but it can, as many protesting Turkish citizens fear, be used to censor anything the government does not want its citizens viewing.

YouTube was banned in Turkey thrice: Its first block was on 6 March 2007, on the grounds of hosting videos which insulted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (sparking flamewars between Greek, Armenian and Turkish netizens on YouTube), but on 2010 the block was lifted. The second block carried out on 27 March 2014 due to a video claiming to depict Turkey's foreign minister, spy chief, and a top general discussing scenarios that could lead to their country's military attacking jihadist militants in Syria, which was overturned on 29 May by the Constitutional Court of Turkey, ruling that the block was unconstitutional, as it violated freedom of expression, which is warranted by the Constitution, The third block on YouTube, which was initiated on 23 December 2016 due to videos of Turkish soldiers being immolated by jihadists, was rescinded on 25 December of that year.

On 29 April 2017, Wikipedia (in all language editions) was banned in Turkey, but on 15 January 2020, the block was lifted.

Blocked websites

• The Jawa Report
• Blogger
• Wordpress
• Richard Dawkins' website
• Little Green Footballs

TV censorship

In television broadcasts, scenes depicting nudity, consumption of alcohol, smoking, drug usage, violence and improper display of designer clothes logo, brand names of food and drink and also street signages of the name of establishment are usually censored by blurring out or cut respective areas and scenes. TV channels also self-censor subtitles in order to avoid heavy fines from the Radio and Television Supreme Council (Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu, RTÜK). For instance, CNBC-e channel usually translates the word “gay” as “marginal“.

• Pokémon - The show was temporarily banned after two children were inspired to jump off a balcony and broke their legs.
• South Park - this show was banned for one year due to its depiction of God as a "rat".
• The Valley of Wolves: Terror (Kurtlar Vadisi: Terör) - this popular television series was banned in 2007 for its violent themes.
• In August 2001, the Radio and Television Supreme Council banned BBC World Service and the Deutsche Welle as their broadcasts were deemed "threatening national security". The ban on broadcasts in Kurdish was lifted with certain qualifications in 2001 and 2002.
• The Loud House - In 2017, following the airing of "L is for Love", the Turkish Government banned the show, and Nickelodeon Turkey stopped airing the show due to Luna Loud having a girlfriend at the end of the episode, making her a lesbian. The ban got lifted after 10 months.
• The Simpsons - in 2013, the Turkish Government fined $30,000 a private channel for airing "Treehouse of Horror XXII", where God was being shown taking orders from the Devil.
• In June 2020, negotiations between Netflix and members of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the issue of including LGBT characters fell through. Turkey had demanded that a gay character be removed entirely from the script prepared for a series. Netflix refused to accept this demand and the production of the show was stopped.

Movies censorship

Any film depicting the Armenian genocide (which, according the Turkish government, never happened), anything critical of the military and any film made by an ethnic Kurd or Armenian can have its creators charged under the article 301 of the penal code for insulting the Turkish identity.

• Bir Çirkin Adam (An Ugly Man) - this 1969 film was banned due to its revelations of the social conditions in the country.
• Yorgun Savaşçı (The Tired Warrior)- this 1979 film was banned due to being based on a novel written by Kemal Tahrir, (who was a Marxist oppositor of the regime) and because the story doubted the uniqueness of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's (Turkey's first President and founding father) contribution to struggle for the Turkish Republic in the 1920s.
• Öyle Bir Kadın Ki (She is Such a Woman) - this 1979 film (which was the first Turkish film to include a hardcore sex scene to be legally produced and distributed) was banned during the 1980 coup d'etat led by Kenan Evren. As of today it is even difficult to find its original and uncut version.
• Su da Yanar (Water Also Burns) - this 1987 film was banned because it dealt with the poet Nazim Hikmet, who was a Communist.
• The Last Temptation of Christ - banned for its "blasphemic themes".
• Atom Egoyan's Ararat was screened there, even with heavy edits, among threats of nationalist groups.
• Sex and the City 2 was banned from Turkish cable television as the representation of gay marriage was seen as "twisted and immoral" and deemed as dangerous for the Turkish family.
• Yeryüzü Aşkın Yüzü Oluncaya Dek (Until the Face of the Earth Becomes a Face of Love) - in 2014, this film was removed from the programme of the International Antalya Film Festival by the organizers, which warned that showing the film may commit the crime of insulting Turkey's president.
• Cuties - this film was banned in the country the same day it premiered in Netflix, despite Netlfix having dubbed the film in Turkish. The reason of the ban was that Cuties had imagery displaying exploitation and sexualization of minors.
• Nymphomaniac - this film was banned for having many sex scenes, making it, according to the Turkish censors, more porn than art.

Books censorship

Any newspaper or book made by an ethnic Kurd or Armenian can have its creators charged under the article 301 of the penal code for insulting the Turkish identity. This what happened to Hrant Dink, an Istanbul-based Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered in 2007 for his views, ensuing a major uproar.

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