Turkish TV gets moralising, soap couple forced to marry

A moralising wind is blowing over television in Turkey, which has been governed for 10 years by the conservative Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In illustration of the phenomenon, the progressive sectors of the Ankara press have today pointed to the case of two stars in a popular Turkish soap, who after living together for 250 episodes, have been forced into an on-screen wedding, amid pressure from RTUK, Turkish television's ruling council. Zeynep and Ozan, the central couple in the popular soap "1 Erzek 1 Kadin" (One man, one woman), will officially be married in an episode to be broadcast next week, the Haberturk newspaper writes. For 250 episodes, the reluctance of Ozan to marry his partner Zeynep has been the central and often comical dynamic in the series. The RTUK has been critical of the soap for some time, saying that it "encourages extra-marital affairs", not least because Zeynep and Ozan appear to be "sexually active". The insistence of the "supreme council" had previously led to the marriage of the womanising star of another popular soap, the police series "Behzat C". Detective Behzat was also eventually forced to marry. Hurriyet has today reported that the popular Lebanese singer, Jehan Barbur, has claimed on Twitter that she has turned down an invitation to appear on a programme on the Turkish state channel TRT because producers asked her to "dress modestly". "Whose masters do they think they are," the singer tweeted. "It's not even up for discussion" was the answer to the invitation, the singer's agent said. (ANSAmed).