Sunday, February 21, 2010

RTUK, Minister of Family and Women's Affairs Lashes Out at Television Show

A popular Turkish television show featuring an adulterous relationship and sexual situations caught the ire of Family and Women's Affairs Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf, who linked the television show to a WHO study on juvenile sexual activity in Turkey. The show, “Aşk-ı Memnu” (Forbidden Love), has been fined twice now by the the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK). Hurriyet quotes Kavaf: “When you consider someone below the age 18 as a child, and you accept 13 as the age for sexuality, this is child pornography.” For more details on the show, see Fatma Disli Zibak's reportage in Today's Zaman.

3 comments:

Bulent Murtezaoglu said...

She probably meant to say something else because what she is quoted as saying doesn't make much sense. I don't watch TV but I find it hard to believe network TV here would show 13-year-olds having sex. Perhaps she meant to say pedophilia instead of pornography? (That doesn't make sense either but for a different reason. I'd be surprised that an AKP member would say something like that for under-18 sex, since there's someone very high up in gov't whose wife was 15 at the time they married.)

Bulent Murtezaoglu said...

I checked a Turkish source, and she did say 'pornography.' Apparently she also said she's irritated by sexuality on TV. Oral Calislar drops the TV reference in his column [in Turkish]: A Female Minister Who's Irritated by Sexuality.

Bulent Murtezaoglu said...

She keeps it coming, treatment for homosexuality is today's installment: Bakan Kavaf: Eşcinsellik hastalık, tedavi edilmeli.