Açık Radyo (Open Radio), whose broadcasts were silenced in October 2024 by Turkish authorities after a guest spoke on air about Armenian genocide, has taken its legal challenge against the cancellation of its license to Turkey’s highest administrative court after lower courts rejected its appeals, Turkish Minute reported.
The İstanbul-based station and its legal team announced on Tuesday that both cases they filed against the decision have been escalated to the Council of State, marking the latest stage in a nearly two-year legal battle.
Speaking at a press conference in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu district, representatives of the station said the case should not be seen as an isolated administrative measure but as a “critical threshold” for freedom of expression, media freedom and the rule of law in Turkey.
“This is not only a matter concerning one institution,” they said, describing the process as a structural problem affecting all independent media outlets in the country.
In a press statement the station argued that imposing harsh sanctions over expressions that have been recognized as protected speech by both national and international court rulings creates a chilling effect on the media and restricts freedom of expression.
The controversy stems from a broadcast in April 2024, when a guest referred to the mass killings of Armenians during the late Ottoman period, using the term Armenian genocide.
The Armenians, supported by a majority of historians and scholars, say 1.5 million of their people died in a genocide committed by the Union and Progress government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians and Turks died in the conflict but firmly rejects the characterization of the deaths as genocide.
Following the broadcast Turkey’s media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), imposed the highest administrative fine on the station and ordered a five-day suspension of the program.
According to Açık Radyo co-founder Ömer Madra, the station later lost its license after failing to implement the suspension due to a technical issue that prevented them from viewing the dates included in the official notification.
“Despite the administrative fine being enforced and despite our request for new dates due to technical reasons regarding the suspension schedule, we were effectively silenced without even receiving a response to our petitions,” Madra said.
Madra criticized the court rulings thus far, saying the station’s legal submissions, including expert reports and precedents, were dismissed with a standard justification that RTÜK’s decision to revoke the station’s license was “in compliance with the law.”
In its legal filings the station argued that it could not be held responsible for remarks made by guests during live broadcasts without considering the overall context and intent of the program and that the sanctions imposed were disproportionate.
Lower courts rejected Açık Radyo’s appeals, and both cases were escalated to the Council of State for final review in 2026.
The station’s broadcasting license was suspended by RTÜK for five days in May on the allegation of inciting hatred. The media regulator subsequently withdrew the station’s license in July, but the radio continued to broadcast until its closure on October 16.
The station, which had been broadcasting for three decades, describes itself as a station “open to all sounds, colors and vibrations of the universe.” Its broadcasts addressed human rights, minority rights and ecological issues, among other topics.
Following the shutdown the station resumed broadcasting online under the name “Apaçık Radyo,” meaning “more open radio,” maintaining its editorial line on digital platforms.
Representatives of the station said during the press conference that despite the loss of its FM license, it continues to operate online under the Apaçık Radyo platform with an expanded team, maintaining its principles of independent broadcasting.
They also noted that the cancellation of an FM license in a metropolis like İstanbul, which faces a high earthquake risk, affects not only a media outlet but also the public’s right to access information.
Turkey, which has a poor record on freedom of the press, was ranked 159th out of 180 nations in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
