Disney’s decision not to air a high-profile series dramatizing the life of Turkey’s founding father has sparked uproar, with top Turkish officials accusing the American network of bowing to pressure from Armenian groups.
Turkish media reported Wednesday that Disney had decided to pull the show “Atatürk,” a six-part period drama series originally billed for broadcast on its Disney+ platform on October 29. Its release was timed to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Ebubekir Şahin, the head of Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, announced an investigation would be launched into claims that the decision was taken after concerted lobbying from the Armenian diaspora.
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“Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic of Türkiye, is our most important social value,” he said.
While Atatürk remains a totemic figure for Turks for founding a modern secular republic in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman empire, critics say his new state embraced the perpetrators of a genocide against Armenians committed during World War I and heaped the blame for the massacres on the victims.
Continue here: Politico
