Earlier this month, I highlighted that the Turkish broadcasting board had fined CNBC-E, a Turkish television station which broadcasts financial reports during the day and subtitled sitcoms in the evening, because it had aired a “Simpsons” episode which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist government deemed insulting to religion. To paraphrase the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, Bart had become a blasphemer. Anyone who doubts that parody and humor have deep roots in the Middle East need only read Bernard Lewis’s primary source book, Islam, From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II: Religion and Society. Political Islamism—especially the variety which arises out of Saudi Arabia and which the Turkish government increasingly embraces—is largely unable to handle satire.
It now seems that the Simpsons were only the first victim of Erdoğan’s broadcasting bureau. Now it’s going after talk shows which say the wrong thing or advocate too strongly for the primacy of free speech. From the Hürriyet Daily News:
