PROTESTERS yesterday called on Turkish Cypriot ‘state broadcaster ‘ Bayrak Radio and Television (BRTK) to stop using its channels to promote ‘presidential’ election candidate Dervis Eroglu.
Speaking at a demonstration outside the BRTK headquarters in northern Nicosia, head of the Turkish Cypriot Teacher’s Union (KTOS) Sener Elcil accused the channel’s head Ozer Kanli of running the channel as a mouthpiece for “reactionaries and nationalists…allergic to talk of a unified Cyprus”.
“In 2004 it broadcasted propaganda apposed to the Annan plan; now it is doing the same by promoting Eroglu,” Elcil told the Cyprus Mail. Eroglu is seen as a staunch nationalist who is expected to scupper ongoing reunification talks if he is elected later this month as Turkish Cypriot leader.
In a symbolic protest, members of KTOS and a number of other trades union, including the Turkish Cypriot journalist’s union BASIN-SEN, deposited an ancient-looking TV set at the entrance to the TV station. Pasted on its screen was a photograph of Eroglu.
“This TV has been broken since 1974. It only shows one thing. We have brought it here to be fixed,” one of the leading protesters announced.
BRTK is currently headed by former Eroglu spokesman Ozer Kanli, who has previously come under fire from incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. In November, Talat accused Kanli of running a campaign to discredit him ahead of ‘presidential’ elections on April 18.
Kanli denied using his position to promote his former boss by discrediting Talat, but did agree not to continue providing panel space to two particularly virulent academics who had allegedly attacked Talat in a live discussion broadcast on BRTK last year.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail shortly after yesterday’s protesters had dispersed, Kanli said he sought to give the two main candidates in the upcoming election even airspace.
“Most of the time, Talat is the first item on the news,” Kanli insisted, adding that he did not see the channel as the mouthpiece of Eroglu and his National Unity Party (UBP), but as the “voice of the Turkish Cypriot people and the state”.
A self-confessed nationalist, Kanli accused yesterday’s protesters as being “people who did not believe in the TRNC”. He added, that while he did not agree politically with Talat, he denied ever having allowed his political leanings to affect the amount of airspace he gave to different political parties.
“My personal views are one thing; BRTK is another,” he insisted. Kanli said his approach had not been used by the previous head, who he said had “banned the UBP” from broadcasts and “forbade people from using the title Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” on air.
