Erdoğan appoints RTÜK Chair to Press Advertisement Institution’s executive board

* Şahin presenting a radio made in 1954 as a gift to Erdoğan while the song "We have walked together on this path" was playing

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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has appointed 12 people to the Executive Board of the Press Advertisement Institution (BİK), which distributes public ads to newspapers and and is usually criticized for cutting the public ads of newspapers, especially the critical ones, as fines over their news content.

Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) Chair Ebubekir Şahin and President's Chief Advisor Saadet Oruç are among the 12 people who have been appointed to the BİK Executive Board, according to the decision published in the Official Gazette today (February 18).

In August 2019, Ebubekir Şahin was appointed as the government's representative to the General Assembly of the BİK.

In addition to being the RTÜK Chair and BİK representative, he was also appointed to the Executive Board of TÜRKSAT, the sole communications satellite operator in Turkey. However, the opposition members of RTÜK called on Şahin to resign. Amid these calls for his resignation, RTÜK Chair Ebubekir Şahin has resigned from the TÜRKSAT Executive Board.

The following 12 people have been appointed to the BİK Executive Board: Fecir Alptekin, Saadet Oruç, Mehmet Akarca, Muhammet Mücahit Küçükyılmaz, Osman Köse, Ahmet Arslan, Ebubekir Şahin, Edibe Sözen, Mehmet Emin Babacan, İsmail Çağlar, Kübra Güran Yiğitbaşı, Zakir Avşar

Press organizations made a call to Erdoğan

The Press Advertisement Institution (BİK) held its last General Assembly meeting on February 17, 2021. In order to urge a meeting after more than a year, the Turkish Journalists' Association (TGC) and Journalists' Federation of Turkey made a call to President Erdoğan.

At his weekly Parliamentary group meeting on February 15, main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also brought the issue to his agenda. He briefly said:

"There is the Press Advertisement Institution. There are official ads of the state. They say, 'The tariffs are very low in these official ads.' They say, 'This tariff must be increased. At least for the newspapers with less than 50 thousand circulation, 30 lira must be set for centimeter-column. Only this can save us.' The Press Advertisement Institution has not convened for a year. The General Assembly does not assemble.

"In fact, according to its own law, it shall convene once in three months. As the 12 members to be appointed by the President since 2018 have not been appointed, the General Assembly cannot convene. And as it does not convene, the prices cannot be set." (HA/SD)