DTP poll shows Roj TV most popular

Turkish Daily News

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A poll by a Diyarbakır municipality shows nearly half of the people in the Yenişehir district earn between YTL 200 and YTL 300 a month

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

The public survey initiated by the Yenişehir Municipality of Diyarbakır showed that Roj TV, seen by Turkey as the mouthpiece of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), as the most popular television channel in the region.Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Yenişehir Mayor from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) Fırat Anlı said the poll showed Roj TV was the most popular channel, while the DTP mayors were being prosecuted for writing a letter saying it shouldn't be closed. A prosecutor has demanded 15 years in prison for 56 DTP mayors who wrote to Denmark's prime minister urging him to resist Turkish calls to ban the ROJ TV station.The mayors were charged after they sent a letter to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asking him to keep the Roj TV station on the air in Denmark despite claims from Turkey that it was a mouthpiece for the PKK, the agency said.

The indictment accused the mayors of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. The PKK has been listed by the European Union and the United States as a terror group. Anlı said the poll was carried out on 1,060 people from neighborhoods within the Yenişehir Municipality . Anlı said Diyarbakır came 53rd in Turkey in the University Entrance Examination (ÖSS) last year, dropping to 59th this year. He said Diyarbakır was in need of support from the government on education, noting that the municipality's resources were not enough to address the issue. Twenty-five percent said they were illiterate and 73 percent said only one person in their household worked. Fırat said the questions were prepared in Turkish, Kurdish and English.

He said 42 percent of those who participated in the poll said their monthly income was between YTL 200 and YTL 300, with 14 percent saying their monthly income was over YTL 1,000 and 21 percent said they had come to Diyarbakır due to mandatory relocation during the 1990s. Of them, 20 percent said they had found it hard to adapt to urban life but eventually had gotten use to it, but another 20 percent said they would return to their villages if helped.According to the poll, if there was an election today, 56.3 percent would vote for DTP and 16 percent would vote for the ruling Justice and Development Party (DTP).He said the poll's results would be sent to the relevant ministries.