Military Academies In Turkey Are Banning ‘Game of Thrones’ As A Way To ‘Protect’ Students

Military academies in Turkey will soon have to say goodbye to The Starks and Lannisters. That’s because the country’s armed forces has banned HBO’s Game of Thrones in an effort to provide “protection of students.”

According to local paper Hurriyet Daily News, the harsh ruling is part of a new set of regulations which looks to prohibit programs that show “sexual exploitation, pornography, exhibitionism, abuse, harassment and all negative behaviors.”

Coincidentally, as programming like GoT is being forced out, Islam is now being let in — religious education based on the Quran has been introduced into the curriculum for the first time ever.

As The Washington Post points out, this isn’t the first time Turkish military schools have given the HBO series the cold shoulder. Back in 2012, four students were dismissed for allowing a showing of the series. Officials at the time did not cite religious reasons or so-called “negative behaviors.” Instead, they implied GoT was “an insult to Turkishness”, referring to the “barbaric” and “pervert” depictions of the Dothrakhi people, who are thought to be ancestrally linked to Turkish tribes.

Via The Washington Post and Hurriyet Daily News

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