Adnan Oktar

The head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) on Jan. 31 slammed controversial TV personality and creationist Adnan Oktar, whose colorful TV shows blend religious talk with elaborately made up and surgically enhanced guests.

An Istanbul court has issued a temporary restraining order against television personality Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, and Gülperi Koçak, the mother of two young women, after a father claimed his two daughters were “forced” to be on Oktar’s program.

Erkan Çapkın, an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suspect being tried in the case into the deadly March 2016 bombing on Istanbul's İstiklal Avenue, has been released from custody with a ban on traveling abroad, with the court citing his health problems.

Turkey’s media watchdog has fined a religious television program for “corrupting religious feelings” due to its host’s allegedly overfamiliar addresses to his aesthetically-enhanced female guests.