TV series sparks free speech row in Turkey
The most talked about television show in Turkey these days is one that's not even on the air.
The wildly popular "Kurtlar Vadisi" ("Valley of the Wolves"), a series that chronicles life in Turkey's criminal underworld, was set to return for a triumphant second season in early February after a one-year hiatus. But, only one episode into its new run on the private Show TV network, the series was unceremoniously yanked off the airwaves, following a large number of complaints and pressure from the government body that oversees Turkish television.
"Kurtlar Vadisi" has been accused of glorifying violence and extreme nationalism. The show tells the story of Polat Alemdar, a patriotic undercover intelligence officer who infiltrates the mafia but starts operating in the murky zone where the interests of unsavory elements of the state and of organized crime meet. It's as if special agent Jack Bauer of the hit show "24" took over Tony Soprano's gang, but instead of engaging in protection rackets started bumping off enemies of the state.
A spin-off movie, which saw the show's hero going to Iraq and doing battle with the US military, is Turkey's highest-grossing movie ever but was accused of being crassly anti-American and anti-Semitic. The new season was supposed to deal with the problem of Kurdish terrorism, but many feared that the show's take on this volatile topic would only fan sectarian tensions in Turkey.
The cancellation of the hit show is raising a debate in Turkey about whether limiting free speech in the name of curbing violence and nationalism is censorship or simply good government, and whether the show is a product of surging nationalism or a contributor to it.
"It was a dilemma for people who support free speech. They were outraged by the show, but yet they couldn't say a word," says Yusuf Kanli, chief columnist for the English-language newspaper Turkish Daily News.
Turkish intellectuals have in recent years accused the government of stifling free speech by prosecuting writers under article 301, a vague law in the penal code that makes it a crime to "insult" Turkish identity, even in a work of fiction.
This time, though, many of those same intellectuals were on the other side of the divide, asking the Turkish government to step in and use its influence to cancel "Kurtlar Vadisi." It was an irony that was not lost on some of the show's supporters.
"These so-called intellectual journalists and writers who were talking so much about the incompatibility of article 301-type legislation in Turkey with the European Union, which was built on the notion of free speech, now all of a sudden have become the supporters of censure when it comes to 'Valley of the Wolves,' " wrote Yilmaz Ozdil, a former television executive who is a columnist for the Sabah newspaper.
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