Turkey's ever-growing Directorate of Religious Affairs, which has long lamented “foreign influence” on Turkey’s children and young people, announced earlier this month that it planned to launch a children’s channel to introduce “national and Islamic values” to preschool kids.

“We haven't been able to introduce our values ​​to our children for years. We tried to feed our children with translated and foreign cartoons,” Ali Erbas, the president of Diyanet (as the directorate is called in Turkish), said at the signing of the protocol with state-run broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) on June 7. 

“However, we need to support and nurture them with our own national values. We know that 70% of human character is formed in childhood, before the age of 7 years. ... We will help mold our children’s character with programs that are factually correct and based on the Quran and Sunnah [acts of the Prophet Muhammad that are exemplary for believers],” he added.

“The director’s words hardly indicate a pedagogical approach to a children’s channel,” Okan Konuralp, a member of the Radio and Television Supreme Council member and a journalist and sociologist who has written extensively on Diyanet, told Al-Monitor. All new channels have to come before the council for approval. Given that the board is dominated by government-appointed members, there will be no problem with approval.