ITV: Acknowledge Turkish Cypriots. We are not a mistake in the script.
The Issue
On 6 August 2026, a line of dialogue in Coronation Street referred to the Turkish side of Cyprus. Some viewers complained. ITV Studios then issued a public apology, calling the language "imprecise" and apologising for the upset caused.
At no point in that apology did ITV name the Turkish Cypriot people — the community of over 300,000 in the United Kingdom who live on that side of the island, whose families were displaced from villages within living memory, and who watched a national broadcaster tell the country, in effect, that our presence is an editorial error.
This is what dehumanisation looks like when it is done politely.
It does not always arrive as a slur. Sometimes it arrives as an apology. Sometimes it arrives as a silence where a community's name should be. When a broadcaster of ITV's reach publicly regrets the acknowledgement of a Turkish side of Cyprus, without ever naming the Turkish Cypriot people who live there and who live here, it teaches its audience that we are the thing that should not have been said.
That framing has a name. Its logic is the logic of ethnic cleansing carried out in language rather than on the ground: first the people are denied, then the place is denied, then the history is denied, and eventually the audience is taught that there was never anyone there to begin with.
This is also, at heart, a campaign about awareness. Most people in the United Kingdom have never been taught that Turkish Cypriots exist as a distinct community — with a language, a history, and a homeland — and that silence is precisely what makes an apology like ITV's possible in the first place. We are not writing to be angry. We are writing to be known. The four questions below are the practical steps; the deeper ask is simply that Britain, and its national broadcaster, learn to see us.
I am not accusing ITV of intending this. But ITV has now participated in it, whether it meant to or not.
WHERE THINGS STAND
A formal complaint has been raised with ITV under reference 320170. A parallel complaint has been submitted to Ofcom under Sections Two (Harm and Offence) and Five (Due Impartiality) of the Broadcasting Code, reference 02275657. ITV Studios has replied at Creative Director level but has not answered the four requests put to it.
WHAT WE ARE ASKING ITV PLC
1. Whether any Turkish Cypriot voices — internal staff, external community bodies, or subject specialists — were consulted before ITV Studios' public statement was issued.
2. How ITV intends to ensure that Turkish Cypriot viewers — licence-paying, tax-paying, British citizens — are seen, named and represented, rather than apologised out of existence.
3. Whether ITV will commit to engaging directly with Turkish Cypriot community organisations, including the Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations UK, when responding to any future Cyprus-related complaint, so that one community's grievance is not resolved by erasing another community's identity.
4. Whether ITV will issue a follow-up public statement that explicitly acknowledges the existence, history and lived experience of Turkish Cypriots, and recognises that Cyprus is a subject of more than one legitimate perspective.
WHY YOUR SIGNATURE MATTERS
ITV serves a diverse country. That responsibility does not end at the communities whose complaints are loudest or most familiar to the newsroom. It extends to the ones the newsroom has to actively remember. Right now, Turkish Cypriots are being forgotten by a national broadcaster, and being forgotten by a national broadcaster is not a neutral experience — it is a form of harm.
We are a people. We are not a mistake in the script.
Sign to ask ITV plc to reflect on that, and to correct it publicly.
Read the full campaign, the letter you can send directly to ITV plc, and the correspondence so far at:
https://notamistake.uk/
2
The Issue
On 6 August 2026, a line of dialogue in Coronation Street referred to the Turkish side of Cyprus. Some viewers complained. ITV Studios then issued a public apology, calling the language "imprecise" and apologising for the upset caused.
At no point in that apology did ITV name the Turkish Cypriot people — the community of over 300,000 in the United Kingdom who live on that side of the island, whose families were displaced from villages within living memory, and who watched a national broadcaster tell the country, in effect, that our presence is an editorial error.
This is what dehumanisation looks like when it is done politely.
It does not always arrive as a slur. Sometimes it arrives as an apology. Sometimes it arrives as a silence where a community's name should be. When a broadcaster of ITV's reach publicly regrets the acknowledgement of a Turkish side of Cyprus, without ever naming the Turkish Cypriot people who live there and who live here, it teaches its audience that we are the thing that should not have been said.
That framing has a name. Its logic is the logic of ethnic cleansing carried out in language rather than on the ground: first the people are denied, then the place is denied, then the history is denied, and eventually the audience is taught that there was never anyone there to begin with.
This is also, at heart, a campaign about awareness. Most people in the United Kingdom have never been taught that Turkish Cypriots exist as a distinct community — with a language, a history, and a homeland — and that silence is precisely what makes an apology like ITV's possible in the first place. We are not writing to be angry. We are writing to be known. The four questions below are the practical steps; the deeper ask is simply that Britain, and its national broadcaster, learn to see us.
I am not accusing ITV of intending this. But ITV has now participated in it, whether it meant to or not.
WHERE THINGS STAND
A formal complaint has been raised with ITV under reference 320170. A parallel complaint has been submitted to Ofcom under Sections Two (Harm and Offence) and Five (Due Impartiality) of the Broadcasting Code, reference 02275657. ITV Studios has replied at Creative Director level but has not answered the four requests put to it.
WHAT WE ARE ASKING ITV PLC
1. Whether any Turkish Cypriot voices — internal staff, external community bodies, or subject specialists — were consulted before ITV Studios' public statement was issued.
2. How ITV intends to ensure that Turkish Cypriot viewers — licence-paying, tax-paying, British citizens — are seen, named and represented, rather than apologised out of existence.
3. Whether ITV will commit to engaging directly with Turkish Cypriot community organisations, including the Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations UK, when responding to any future Cyprus-related complaint, so that one community's grievance is not resolved by erasing another community's identity.
4. Whether ITV will issue a follow-up public statement that explicitly acknowledges the existence, history and lived experience of Turkish Cypriots, and recognises that Cyprus is a subject of more than one legitimate perspective.
WHY YOUR SIGNATURE MATTERS
ITV serves a diverse country. That responsibility does not end at the communities whose complaints are loudest or most familiar to the newsroom. It extends to the ones the newsroom has to actively remember. Right now, Turkish Cypriots are being forgotten by a national broadcaster, and being forgotten by a national broadcaster is not a neutral experience — it is a form of harm.
We are a people. We are not a mistake in the script.
Sign to ask ITV plc to reflect on that, and to correct it publicly.
Read the full campaign, the letter you can send directly to ITV plc, and the correspondence so far at:
https://notamistake.uk/
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Petition created on 6 September 2026