Turkey's Acik Radyo silenced as broadcast license revoked amid free speech concerns

An Istanbul-based independent radio station has gone off air after Turkey's radio and television watchdog canceled its terrestrial broadcast license, months after it was suspended over comments made by a guest on the genocide of Armenians.

"With its 30th broadcasting anniversary only a month away, this news has been the latest blow to freedom of speech and media in Turkey," Acik Radyo (Open Radio) said in a written statement.

The station was suspended in May and fined after a guest, speaking on April 24, referred to the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as genocide.

RTUK, the watchdog, said at the time that the radio station had made no attempt to correct the guest's remarks, which constituted incitement to hatred and hostility.

Contesting figures

The station's broadcast license was canceled on October 11 after a court lifted a stay of execution in September.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

Commemorations are held around the world each April 24 for the killings, that many countries recognize as genocide.

"Revoking the license, regardless of the reason, is definitely an attempt to silence the public voice," Omer Madra, co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Acik Radyo, told reporters on Wednesday after the radio went off the air.