Istanbul, Feb 17 (DPA) Fictional boy detective Tintin has fallen foul of Turkish television watchdogs because characters in the beloved Belgian cartoons are sometimes portrayed smoking, newspaper reports said Wednesday.
Turkey’s Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) recently fined a private television channel 50,000 lira ($3,300) for airing Tintin cartoons that contained scenes with smoking in them, the daily Milliyet reported.
A notable offender was Tintin’s cantankerous pal, Captain Haddock, who frequently sports a pipe.
A law adopted in early 2008 put into effect strict bans on showing people smoking on screen and even during live plays. Since then, Turkish censors have increasingly gone after violators, blurring out scenes in old films and television series that feature smoking and fining stations that fail to do so.
The show, Herge’s Adventures of Tintin, is an animated series based on the original comic book series, and was produced between 1958 and 1962.
RTUK also fined another private channel for showing the hit American show “Mad Men”, which tells the story of a New York advertising agency in the 1960s, when smoking was an integral part of the landscape.
The agency’s complaint cited the show for many scenes that show “lighting a cigarette, smoking, blowing smoke into the air, offering (a cigarette) to another, putting out cigarettes and drinking.”
Television channels have criticised the agency’s aggressive limitations, saying they should not apply to shows and movies made before the law was passed.
Turkey in July also passed an expanded ban on smoking in public places, including bars and clubs.
