Radio Programmer Fired After Mentioning Berkin
Arzu Çağlan, organizer and broadcaster of the program “Arzu’nun İnleyen Nağmeleri” for 21 years, has been fired from her job because she commemorated Berkin Elvan (15) while she was broadcasting.
Çağlan shared following messages on her twitter account:
“My program which filled its 21st year on 5 February was banned due to my broadcasting. I’m proud…Ask other people, I was leading the most widely-listened program of Best FM.”
“I have neither RTÜK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) program content penalty nor sentence. It is totally an arbitrary decision.”
“[Radio owners] are telling people that “I left voluntarily”. What a shame! There is nothing like that at all. Why should I leave? The programs which I’ve made in three days are obvious.”
“I would have a high level of rating in new radio research. It would come out in June, they wanted to block such success of a woman…”
“I have a father who is 76 years old and a retired local business owner. There is no illicit in our house. I have never been a sycophant of somebody, and I won’t be one. Because of the respect that I have for my father…”
” I am not happy to tell the situation which is going on, crying mothers, the ones who lost their lives as exposed to tear gas on the streets. I wish nobody dies and we would tell better things on broadcast. I made my audience to earn the right, the most natural right to gain the news by telling them the situations that exist, and I’m proud that I’m fired from this subject. Being fired for telling the truth is better than misguiding people by telling the wrong and staying silent,” Çağlan told Nurcan Gökçe Patır from Medya Alemi (a news website). (EKN/BD/BM)