Meh.

Au contraire, Turkey isn't as extreme as China (the short list of places off the top of my head that are is Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo) but it's a matter of degrees. A choice between a military government that puts you in the proverbial "Turkish prison" for criticizing government past or present, or a fundamentalist one that simply wants to execute you as an infidel. A quick pass by Wikipedia seems to indicate "First World" and "Industrialized World" are nearly synonymous in modern parlance (while claiming that, in essence, a "First World" nation was originally no more nor less than a NATO ally) so maybe that's not the right term. "Free world" then, or "civilized world" if you prefer. Places that don't imprison or execute you because they don't like what you say (which is what makes defending this programs airing on the grounds of free speech so absurd. ) Turkey, China or the indigenous people of Charon, they shouldn't be allowed participation in free democratic international communities while rejecting trivial details like freedom and democracy out of hand. Whether it's Turkeys terrorist sympathizing genocide denying junta seeking EU admission or Chinas "Dickens meets Assyria" membership in the WTO it amounts to the degrees of the same thing. When they demonstrate themselves to be the kind of civilized forward looking states that have the economic and diplomatic benefits of a France or Japan they should receive them, but not encouraged to have their economic and political cake and eat it, too. "We want in the WTO but rarely enforce our minimum wage (which, last I checked, was about $0.20/hr)!" "We want to join the EU that criminalized Holocaust denial but jail people for saying we committed genocide!" People in hell want ice water.

Have I? I'm saying if a private citizen did it would still be libelous and inflammatory, but perhaps not deserving of censorship (a libel suit would still be very much on the table, IMHO. ) On the basis of that view, which I admit is just my opinion, a government organ doing it is just that much worse. It's in line with calling Germans "Huns" during the Great War, with the key differences that 1) Turkey isn't at war with either country and is nominally allied with one of them, and 2) this is 2010, not 1910.

Bottom line: A country that imprisons people in conditions infamous throughout the world for the great crime of calling genocide genocide didn't allow their state TV station to air this program for the sake of free speech. They have no problem with unreasonable censorship, they just didn't WANT to censor this, and that's a real problem, one in which I hope the EU can avoid becoming involved or even complicit.