Turkish Airlines discriminates against critical newspapers on planes

Turkey's flagship carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) stopped the distribution of the Zaman, Today's Zaman, Bugün and Ortadoğu dailies to business-class passengers on its planes on Monday without providing any explanation, though other dailies are still being handed out onboard.

THY's Public Relations Department gave no explanation as to why it made the decision to remove the papers from its distribution. However, it did say that passengers would still be able to obtain papers of their choice after displaying their boarding pass at THY newspaper stands located beyond passport control.

THY significantly slashed its number of subscriptions to the aforementioned newspapers following an open disagreement between the government -- which had made a decision to shut down prep schools -- and the dailies, which held a critical editorial stance against the move. The numbers of these newspapers were lowered in THY's private “Commercially Important Persons” lounge.

The airline stopped handing out issues of Today's Zaman following the paper's coverage of a corruption investigation involving the sons of three Turkish ministers. The decision to cut the other papers from its distribution came on Monday.

Main opposition CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu submitted a question in Parliament on Monday to be answered by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the decision of THY, which is a public company.

Tanrıkulu asked the prime minister why the distribution of Zaman, Today's Zaman, Bugün and Ortadoğu had stopped on board the planes, although they had been handed out up until Monday. “Is there some kind of censorship of newspapers that are critical of your government?” Tanrıkulu asked.

In a separate move, another CHP deputy chairman, Umut Oran, demanded to know, in a parliamentary question for Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, whether such an attitude represents a form of censorship on the part of the THY, 49.12 percent of which is publicly owned.

Pınar Türenç, president of the Turkish Press Council, asked Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım to remove the distribution restriction against Zaman, Today's Zaman, Bugün and Ortadoğu on its planes. “This is unacceptable since it is a violation of the equality and freedom to receive news,” Türenç added.

Light punishment for offensive tweet against Islamic scholar Gülen

Meanwhile, THY's administration announced on Monday that it "condemns" a comment made by its brand consultant, Serdar Özer Öztürk, who had posted a sexually offensive tweet about Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Shorty after strong and widespread reaction mounted on social media against Öztürk for his tweet, THY Chairman Hamdi Topçu criticized the offensive comment about Gülen, saying that “necessary steps will be taken.”

Published on Today's Zaman, 23 December 2013, Monday