And another bunch of lights are snuffed out in the world, and new organizations form to snuff them out and keep them out.
Today’s Zaman
19 April 2012 / ABDULLAH BOZKURT , LIBREVILLE
A Turkish proposal to establish a broadcasting watchdog agency among 57 Muslim countries was officially approved on Thursday at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Gabon’s capital, Libreville. The decision effectively empowers the OIC with new tools to promote broadcasting of a positive image of the Muslim world on member countries’ television channels. The OIC was established in 1969 to protect and promote the interests of Muslims worldwide.
Officially named “The OIC Broadcast Regulatory Authorities Forum,” the platform can be used by Turkey to limit broadcasts by banned Kurdish Roj-TV, which is affiliated with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in case the PKK in the future decides to use one of the OIC members’ local channels to broadcast terror propaganda.
Turkey submitted the proposal to establish the OIC Broadcast Regulatory Authorities Forum in an OIC meeting in Dakar, Senegal, held from Oct. 11-13, 2010. The proposal was welcomed and approved for further exploration. The forum held its inaugural meeting in ?stanbul on Nov. 17-18, 2011. It was officially approved at the Ninth Session of the Islamic Conference of Information Ministers of the member states of the OIC in Gabon this week. Saudi Arabia will host the forum’s second meeting later in 2012.
The OIC describes the forum as a platform “intended to promote coordination, communication and cooperation among the authorities in charge of regulating broadcasting in member states, as well as to enhance the exchange of information, ideas and expertise on issues of common interest in the areas related to the services of the audiovisual media sector.”
Turkey, which has adopted progressive laws regulating the national broadcast industry in line with EU directives and Council of Europe resolutions, used its experience to establish a similar platform within the framework of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). The proposal was worked out by Turkey’s national media watchdog agency, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) and was approved by 11 of the 12 member BSEC countries in the BSEC Information and Communication Technologies Working Group meeting held in Kiev, Ukraine on Dec. 4-5, 2007.
Correction, OIC should rightfully mean Organization of the Islamic Caliphate. definitely NOT cooperation. They don’t know the meaning of that word.
“The OIC was established in 1969 to protect and promote the interests of Muslims worldwide.” And a major oil crisis hit us just a little later? Makes one wonder.
57 muslim states? Where have we heard that phrase “57 states” before?
Joy52 I keep thinking of Heinz. Could you be thinking of, ’57 steaks’?
If only those muslim states were as good and as useful as all those wonderful sauces.