First Banned in U.S.,
‘Wolves’ Now Banned
in Turkey for Violence
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Demonstrators marched Saturday (Feb. 17, 2007) to protest the Turkish government ban of the television program "Valley of the Wolves."
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About 30 protestors chanted slogans outside the offices of Radio and Television Supreme Council and painted graffiti on the building, the Financial Times of London reported Monday (Feb. 19, 2007).
Turkish government officials said they banned the new season of the show because of its violent themes.
"The show encouraged violence. This is not censorship but a move to protect society," said Mustafa Ozyurek, deputy chairman of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party.
"It is of course censorship to cancel a show that reflects real things," Melda Simsek, communications department professor of Marmara University in Turkey.
A Turkish film adaptation of the TV series was banned from theaters in the United States in November, according to the The Jerusalem Post newspaper. The movie depicts the U.S. occupation of Iraq. American actor Gary Busey plays a Jewish doctor in the U.S. Army who removes organs from Iraqi prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. The doctor then sells the organs on the black market.
The Turkish film was pulled from U.S. theaters in November after a complaint by the Anti-Defamation League to the Turkish ambassador to the U.S., The Jerusalem Post reported (Monday, Nov. 27, 2006).
Turkish producer Pana Films had pulled the film from U.S. theaters in Los Angeles and San Francisco without explanation, according to The Jerusalem Post.
