President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday threatened Turkish media with reprisals if they disseminated content that damaged the country’s core values, in a move that might be a prelude to further censorship in the sector.
In a notice published in the Official Gazette, he said measures were needed to protect Turkey’s “national culture” and prevent its children’s development “from being adversely affected as a result of exposure to harmful content on all written, verbal and visual media.”
Mr. Erdogan did not specify what such content was, but said legal action would be taken against “overt or covert activities through the media aimed at undermining our national and moral values and disrupting our family and social structure.”
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Turkey has in recent years moved to increase media oversight, with around 90% of major media now owned by the state or those entities close to the government.
Tens of thousands have been prosecuted including Sedef Kabas, a well-known journalist jailed last week pending trial after posting a proverb about Mr. Erdogan’s palace on her Twitter account and repeating it on an Opposition television channel.