'Financial censorship': Public ad ban on Evrensel newspaper in place for 483 days

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The Press Advertising Agency (BİK), the institution responsible for placing public ads and notices in newspapers, has not placed a notice in Evrensel newspaper for 482 days.

On September 18, 2019, the newspaper was handed an ad suspension penalty by the BİK and has not received any public ads since then, said its editor-in-chief Fatih Polat.

Public notices are an important revenue item for independent newspapers in Turkey. Over the past few years, the BİK has been criticized by journalism organizations for using ad bans as a tool to punish newspapers critical of the government.

"After a complaint by Sezgin Tunç, the attorney of Fahrettin Altun, the Press Advertising Agency decided that this report violated the Press Ethic Principles," said Polat.In one incident, the BİK suspended the newspaper's ads for three days because of a report about three journalists from daily Cumhuriyet being summoned to testify after it published a report about the illegal small structures that Presidency Communications Director Fahrettin Altun built in the yard of his house in İstanbul's Bosphorus view.Even though Evrensel had not been receiving ads, the BİK suspended its ads for 68 more days in 2020, said Polat.

Also, the newspaper's ads were suspended for five days because of a report about Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Özgür Özel's criticism of Altun over the same issue, he added.

"These decisions show that there is a big difference between the universal principles of journalism and the Press Advertising Agencies Ethic Principles of Journalism," Polat said, adding that the reports in question should be published according to the universal principles of journalism.

"On the contrary, you would betray the people's right to information if you draw a veil on the story because it would anger Fahrettin Altun and the Press Advertising Agency will issue a penalty," he said. "This is against the conditions of Evrensel's existence."

"We can survive thanks to the readers"

The newspaper can survive thanks to its readers, Polat noted. "This is a punishment in practice. [The BİK] doesn't place ads on the pretext of the pandemic.

"This is something that surrounds uf financially. It's financial censorship in the end. Because we pay salaries to our employees, pay insurances, rents, print fees, bills... We have a lot of expenditures. The money from the Press Advertising Agency's ad suspensions also has its share in the costs.

"We now try to survive with our own means, with the circulation and e-newspaper subscriptions. We can continue publishing with the support of the readers." (HA/VK)