March 01, 2017•Update: March 02, 2017
VIENNA
A Turkish-Austrian TV host has complained of censorship after a show about Turkey’s constitutional referendum was taken off air.
Mehmet Keser, the producer and presenter of the Mehmet Keser Show, said Okto TV pulled the show that focused on the arguments in favor of the proposed changes to introduce a presidential system in Turkey.
Keser said the program -- which hosted two guests speaking in favor of a Yes vote in the April 16 referendum -- had been due to be repeated for 10 days but was closed after three “following huge pressure from the TV channel.”
He added: “I have been doing this program for 11 years. I'm astonished. I don't have the words to say. I see that this is what European democracy is like.”
Kesser said an email from the channel -- a private, non-profit community channel based in Vienna that broadcasts public interest programs -- cited propaganda in support of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the reason for its decision.
However, he denied the claim and said the arguments in favor of a No vote would have been addressed in a later program.
“I had decided to invite two guests from each side to discuss the issue,” he told Anadolu Agency. “But one of the guests refused to sit at the same table with another guest from other side.
“Then I planed to invite a guest from the Yes campaign to one program and the guests from the No campaign to the next program.”
Okto TV is partly financed by the Vienna municipal authority.
In January, Turkey’s parliament passed an 18-article bill to be put to a referendum on reforms that would hand wide-ranging executive powers to the president and abolish the post of prime minister.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said Erdogan was “not welcome” to campaign for a Yes vote in Austria, which is home to around 350,000 people of Turkish origin, including 117,000 Turkish nationals.
The minister said such a visit would increase polarization among the Turkish population.
*Reporting by Askin Kiyagan; Writing by Sorwar Alam
