Swedish local weather activist Greta Thunberg on Friday visited Istanbul’s Acik Radyo, whose broadcasts have been silenced earlier this month by Turkish authorities after a visitor spoke on air in regards to the “Armenian genocide”, the station mentioned.
“Greta helps Acik Radyo,” it wrote on X, posting a video of the 21-year-old activist expressing assist for the broadcaster whose identify means “open radio”.
“Open Radio ought to keep open! I assist Acik Radyo. It’s extra vital than ever that we’ve got sincere media platforms that inform the reality in regards to the local weather disaster and human rights,” Thunberg mentioned.
Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog RTUK suspended Acik Radyo for 5 days in Might on grounds of allegedly inciting hatred, then withdrew its licence in July, though it continued broadcasting till mid-October.
The sanctions got here after an April broadcast through which a visitor referred to as the 1915 killings of Armenians within the remaining days of the Ottoman Empire-era “genocide”.
Many historians agree with the time period but it surely has been fiercely disputed by successive Turkish governments.
Co-founded some 30 years in the past by outstanding Turkish environmental activist Omer Madra, Acik Radyo’s broadcasts addressed human rights, minority rights and ecological points.
Its final broadcast was on October 16, but it surely has vowed to enchantment the ban and return to the airwaves.
Reporters With out Borders (RSF) denounced the closure, saying the station “embodied pluralist info, respect for cultural and political minorities, in addition to the battle for the local weather and ecological consciousness”.
Armenia says Ottoman forces massacred and deported greater than 1.5 million Armenians throughout World Warfare I between 1915 and 1917, with some 30 nations recognising the killings as genocide.
Turkey rejects the cost though it acknowledges that as much as 500,000 Armenians have been killed in ethnic combating, massacres or hunger throughout mass deportations from japanese Anatolia.
