Turkish Government Religious Foundation Records Huge Increase In TV Station Funds

Turk­ish media is report­ing that a Turk­ish gov­ern­ment reli­gious foun­da­tion’s TV chan­nel, known to broad­cast in Europe, has record­ed a near­ly ten-fold increase in cap­i­tal over the past three years. Accord­ing to the Cumhuriyet report:

May 2, 2021 On May 17, 2018, the Turk­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion estab­lished Vakıf Medya Sanat Radyo Tele­vizy­on Anon­im Şir­keti in the field of media. On July 2, 2018, RTÜK [Turk­ish Radio and Tele­vi­sion Supreme Coun­cil] issued a broad­cast license to the com­pa­ny with the logo “Diyanet TV”. Diyanet TV start­ed its broad­cast­ing life on August 16, 2018, with a spe­cial broad­cast held at 23:45. Diyanet TV first broad­cast­ed via satel­lite fre­quen­cies allo­cat­ed to TRT, and on Decem­ber 1, 2018, con­tin­ued its broad­casts through the TURKSAT fre­quen­cies allo­cat­ed to it. Diyanet TV also reach­es Euro­pean coun­tries via UTELSAT satel­lite and Cen­tral Asian coun­tries via YAMAL satel­lite. The chan­nel can also be found on Dig­itürk, D‑Smart, Tivibu, and Turk­cell TV. Accord­ing to Trade Reg­istry records dat­ed April 22, 2021, Vakıf Medya Sanat Radyo Tele­vizy­on Anon­im Şir­keti, the broad­cast­er of Diyanet TV, increased its cap­i­tal to TL 25,275,000. The com­pa­ny was found­ed in May 2018 with a cap­i­tal of TL 275,000. [Trans­lat­ed by Microsoft Trans­la­tor with edits]

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The Turk­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 1975 to sup­port the Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet), a Turk­ish state insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs. The Diyanet was found­ed in 1924 to monop­o­lize con­trol of Sun­ni Islam in Turkey under the state. The Diyanet drafts a week­ly ser­mon deliv­ered at all of Turkey’s mosques, and their imams are civ­il ser­vants employed by the state. Through orga­ni­za­tions such as DITIB, the Diyanet pro­vides imams and pays imams for Turk­ish mosques abroad. Diyanet imams have also spied on Turkey’s oppo­nents abroad and report­ed back to the government.