Deputy PM says they do not fit with the country’s ‘customs, traditions, beliefs and family structure’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Turkey is planning to ban popular television dating shows because they do not fit with Turkish traditions and customs, the deputy prime minister has said.

Numan Kurtulmuş was referring to matchmaking reality shows, which are popular in Turkey but attract thousands of complaints every year.

“There are some strange programmes that would scrap the institution of family, take away its nobility and sanctity,” Kurtulmuş said in an interview with a provincial TV channel published by the Hürriyet daily on Thursday.

Turkey closes 20 TV and radio stations in post-coup clampdown Read more

“We are working on this and we are coming to the end of it. God willing, in the near future, we will most likely remedy this with an emergency decree,” Kurtulmuş said.

“God willing, we will meet these societal demands,” he said in the interview on Wednesday.

His comments are likely to raise concerns in a country whose political system rests on the secular foundations laid by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at its creation in 1923.

Opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government frequently voice fears that Turkey is sliding toward conservative Islam.

Kurtulmuş described such programmes as counter to Turkey’s “customs, traditions, beliefs, the Turkish family structure and the culture of Anatolian lands”.

He hit back at those who claimed they were ratings successes: “So what, the ratings are very high and thus the advertising revenue is high? Let there not be that kind of advertising revenues.”

Kurtulmuş said he had been told there were 120,000 individual complaints against such programmes.

Last year, Turkey’s audiovisual regulatory authority RTUK said it had received comments from 10,691 citizens about such programmes, most of which were complaints.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: 'A woman is above all else a mother' Read more

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, caused controversy in 2012, when he was prime minister, when he compared abortion to murder.

Critics also claim that education reforms, including a growing number of religious schools, show that the country’s secular foundations are being undermined.

In February, Turkish religious affairs agency Diyanet criticised matchmaking shows, saying they “exploited family values and desecrated the family institution by stepping on it with [their] feet”.

The Turkish authorities insist there is full freedom of religious belief in the country.