Acik Radio Silenced
The objection that Açık Radyo raised to the Council of State - Head of the General Committee of the Administrative Offices has not resulted yet.
Following the broadcast of the renowned author Charles Bukowski's story 'The Most Beautiful Girl in Town' on Açık Radyo, RTUK subjected the radio to a penalty of stopping broadcast based on the reasons that it was against the 'general morals, social order, and the codes of the Turkish Familial life'.
Concerning the 'Bukowski Case', Açık Radyo opened a case against RTUK's penalty of stopping broadcast for 15 days dated September 2000, and the radio's claim for the cancellation of the execution of the penalty was found reasonable. Later, in June 2001, Ankara 9th Administrative Court decided, based on the expert opinion, that RTUK's execution would be cancelled. Thus Açık Radyo won the case.
The committee of experts, which consisted of Prof. Nevzat Toroslu, Prof. Bülent Çaplı, and Assistant Prof. Nilap Çabuk of Ankara University, stated, in the report that they prepared, that Bukowski's story 'did not deal with the social order and the codes of the Turkish familial life' and that 'it is impossible to define the story as against the general codes of morality in any sense'.
RTUK, then, applied to the Council of State and claimed that the execution of the Administrative Court's decision should be cancelled and that the case should be held again. The Council of State decided on the cancellation of the execution of the penalty subjected by the Administrative Court, however the Council did not make an announcement concerning the holding of the real action of annulment again. Açık Radyo has applied to the Council of State - Head of the General Committee of the Administrative Offices for the cancellation of execution of the Council of State's decision.
During the more-than-six-years non-stop broadcast of Açık Radyo 500 people regardless of their age, nationality, and sex have broadcast in 500 different programmes for nearly 54,000 hours in almost every subject that can enter the human being's field of interest. Among the programmers there was the taxi driver looking at the streets of İstanbul through his car's rearview mirror as well as the professor of Rhinolaryngology listening to the divine sonority of the Brandenburg Concerto.
It aroused great reactions in the media that a radio should be subjected to penalty of stopping broadcast since a trajic story by Bukowski, the renowned contemporary author, was read on it and that Nuri Kayaş, the Head of RTUK, read the part that he found against the codes of morality on TV was considered a scandal.