The Turkish government wants to ensure that the output of the country’s media conforms to “traditional family values.”
It is to take unspecified “measures” aimed at countering what it regards as the “negative effects” on family of material in newspapers, on television and even on social media.
Hurriyet Daily News reports that the government, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, will “inspect” all broadcasts and publications as part of its official programme for 2016.
A statement said “measures will be taken to ensure that visual, aural and social media, news, tabloids, films and similar types of productions conform to our traditional family values.”
The plan is a response to the “grave dangers” to the institution of family in Turkey due to divorces, inadequacies in family education and the rise of “individualism.”
Supposedly sanctioned by the country’s media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council, the initiative was the result of a joint effort by several government ministries.
Erdoğan’s government has been under fire, both domestically and internationally, over the lack of press freedom in Turkey.
It was ranked at 149, out of 180, on the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index in 2015.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
