Demirtaş Criticizes TRT on TRT

Presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş and Nationalist Movement Party’s chairman Devlet Bahçeli reacted to TRT’s one-sided broadcast on August 10 Presidential Elections. Demirtaş criticized TRT in his election speech on TRT with "closed" remarks and Bahçeli said “TRT is serving to Erdoğan” at his Afyonkarahisar demonstration. TRT Haber ceased the broadcast after Bahçeli’s remarks.

Demirtaş: Fair TRT

“There is a little time left before the Presidential elections and as you all can see very closely TRT is very objective, unbiased and treats equally to all candidates. They show a great example of fair and polite attitude, especially towards me, and I’m having the excitement and happiness of giving this speech from this precious institution’s screen.”

Social media discussed Demirtaş’s remarks. Many users shared the video of his speech’s 30 second long TRT related part.

Censorship to Bahçeli

Bahçeli also criticized TRT at his Afyonkarahisar demonstration.

“Televisions are propagandizing candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan all day. 17 of these televisions are partisan, some of them are supporters and some gave up because of their fear. There are three different candidates and only one of them has this opportunity, how do you think you can find democracy and justice in Turkey with a situation like this?”  

“Turkish Republic’s television is a corporate communication tool. They are standing on their feet with our taxes. The employees are receiving their payments as public servants, they don’t have an employer, and their employer is this public. But, they’re sparing 500 hours to propagandize for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, they give 3 hours to one of the other candidates and 7 hours to the other one.  In a situation like this, the public is not the employer anymore, the candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is.”

TRT News ceased the broadcast after these remarks of Bahçeli. (EA/ENÜ)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.