The Press Advertisement Agency has completely cancelled the right of Evrensel to publish official advertisements. We object to the government's transformation of BİK into an apparatus to economically collapse the press that is not 'partisan'.
The Press Advertisement Agency (BİK) has completely cancelled the right of our newspaper Evrensel to publish official announcements and advertisements. Due to the official announcement and advertisement suspension decision taken in September 2019, our newspaper had been unlawfully denied advertisements for 3 years. With the latest decision, this suspended right was completely cancelled. The cancellation decision was justified by the fact that our readers buy more than one newspaper from newsstands. The Press Advertisement Agency insisted on its decision after we refuted the grounds for cancelling our right to publish official advertisements one by one with documents, and continued its ban decision on unjustified grounds. We will fight together with our readers against this persistence in violation of press freedom, without compromising the public's right to receive news!
BİK's reasons for refusal are unjustified and we will surely win!
We object to the government's transformation of BİK into an apparatus to economically collapse the press that is not 'partisan'.
We reject the government's use of RTÜK as a tool to control television broadcasting by blacking out televisions that broadcast what it does not 'want'.
We oppose the elimination of the public's right to receive news with the Censorship Law and the criminalisation of digital posts.
Our lawyer Devrim Avcı said, "The double standard of the Press Advertisement Agency, which disregards the subscriptions of trade unions and political parties, will be an issue to be exposed for us as well as our legal struggle."
As Evrensel, we declare: We will never compromise the public's right to receive news for the restoration of our right to advertisement, we will insist on our publishing! We will submit our objection file, in which we present data refuting BİK's grounds for cancellation one by one, to the BİK Board of Directors, and if there is a rejection decision from there, we will submit it to the administrative court and, respectively, to all judicial authorities. We remind you once again: The Press Advertisement Agency was established in 1961 with Law No. 195, and its founding law states that its purpose is to distribute advertisements to support newspapers "regardless of opinion and content". The usurpation of Evrensel's right to advertisement is contrary to the reason for the establishment of BİK and is political. It seems that the restoration of this right will be possible with a court decision. We would like to add that we will continue the following legal processes with the same diligence: We will never compromise the public's right to receive news for the restoration of our right to advertise, we will never give in, and we will surely win!
Against the penalisation of Evrensel, which has been the defender of the truth since 1995, and against all obstacles to the press and the right to receive news, we call on our readers to raise our objection, to buy at least one Evrensel from the newsstands, to subscribe our e-newspaper; we invite them to submit their objection to the Press Advertisement Agency, which ignores them! (EVRENSEL DAILY)
Aras Coşkuntuncel
