Executives and a program host from the Tele1 broadcaster were taken to court in İstanbul after prosecutors opened an investigation into a broadcast caption that compared President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
General Director Merdan Yanardağ, Program Director İhsan Demir, and moderator Musa Özuğurlu were brought in by police for questioning as part of the probe.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said it launched the investigation after a Sep 21 broadcast of Türkiye'nin Yönü (Turkey’s Direction), a current affairs program, showed a ticker for about one minute. The upper line of the ticker based on the pundits' comments read, "What is the difference between RTE and Netanyahu?" and the lower line read, "Erdoğan–Trump Jr meeting supports situation in Gaza."
Prosecutors said the three executives were responsible for the content and face charges of “publicly insulting the president” under Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code.
Police arrived at the channel to bring Yanardağ and Özuğurlu to court, while Demir was taken from his home.
Later in the day, all three journalists were released with an international travel ban.
Tele1 apologizes for ‘mistaken’ caption
The broadcaster issued a statement calling the caption a technical mistake that was never approved by management. “Although the discussion in the program concerned the Trump-Erdoğan meeting, the ticker contained a comparison between Erdoğan and Netanyahu,” the statement said.
“Even though it was not a definitive statement, the sentence was open to misinterpretation. We do not find it appropriate. The error stemmed from our production team and was made inadvertently. We apologize for this mistake. Following our administrative review, we will take the necessary decisions.”
Yanardağ also apologized during another broadcast yesterday, saying, “Erdoğan and Netanyahu cannot be compared. I do not find this correct. No matter how much we criticize, this language is wrong. We do not agree with the statement in the ticker, we reject it, and we apologize because it appeared on Tele1.”
He added that the channel had decided to part ways with the staff responsible.
Ömer Çelik, spokesperson of Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), commented on the incident, saying, “An apology must be followed by consequences. There should be no doubt that we will confront any disrespect toward our president both legally and politically.”
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