Turkey shuts down radio station over ‘Armenian genocide’ reference

İstanbul-based Açık Radyo on Wednesday was shut down by authorities, six months after a guest talked about the “Armenian genocide” on air, Agence France-Presse reported.

But the radio station has vowed to fight on and find a way to keep working.

“We will continue to exist,” Didem Gençtürk, Açık Radyo’s broadcast coordinator, said minutes before the station went off the air.

"Açık Radyo kâinatın tüm seslerine, renklerine ve titreşimlerine açık kalacaktır." pic.twitter.com/okt7alUM4F

— Açık Radyo (@acikradyo) October 16, 2024

Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), had already suspended Açık Radyo for five days in May for the same program, which it said incited hatred.

The media regulator withdrew the station’s license in July but the radio had been broadcasting until now.

The sanctions came after a guest on a show in April called the 1915 killings of Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire “genocide.” It is a term many historians agree on but which Turkey fiercely disputes.

Açık Radyo urged its listeners to raise “an even clearer and louder voice” against the shutdown.

“Our radio has become an amplifier for civilian voices in many fields from the struggle for climate and the environment to public health, and from gender equality to multiculturalism,” the station said Friday.

“Açık Radyo has not restricted itself to radio frequencies, and there can be no doubt that it will continue its duty as an independent medium,” it added.

“Our radio cannot and will not be silenced.”

Açık Radyo said it would pursue legal means against the measure.

The station, which has been broadcasting for three decades, describes itself as a station “open to all sounds, colors and vibrations of the universe.”

Turkey was ranked 158th out of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Erol Önderoğlu, RSF’s Turkey representative, condemned the move, urging authorities to return the antenna and put an end to this “scandalous relentlessness.”

“RTÜK controlled by the government has halted the terrestrial broadcasts of a radio station which since its creation 30 years ago has embodied pluralist information, respect for cultural and political minorities as well as the fight for the climate and awareness for ecology in a country where media polarization has continued to strengthen,” he told AFP.

Armenia says Ottoman forces massacred and deported more than 1.5 million Armenians during World War I between 1915 and 1917.

Around 30 countries have recognized the killings as genocide, a charge vehemently rejected by Turkey.

Ankara admits nonetheless that up to 500,000 Armenians were killed in fighting, massacres or by starvation during mass deportations from eastern Anatolia.