A response to ITV Studios’ apology of August 2026
We are a community.
We are not a mistake in the script.
On 6 August 2026, a line of dialogue in Coronation Street referred to the Turkish side of Cyprus. Some viewers complained. ITV apologised — and in doing so, never once named the Turkish Cypriot people.
This is an Embargoed! community campaign, with four questions shown below at its centre and the visibility of Turkish Cypriots at its heart. The immediate ask is that ITV plc answers the four questions in full. The wider ask is that Turkish Cypriots — a community with a homeland, a history, and hundreds of thousands of people in Britain — are seen, named, and understood as we are.
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What happened
On 6 August 2026, an episode of Coronation Street included a line of dialogue referring to the Turkish side of Cyprus. Following a formal letter of complaint sent by an advocacy body to ITV plc’s Chief Executive, ITV Studios issued a public statement in August 2026 describing the language used in the broadcast as ‘imprecise’ and apologising for the upset caused to what it called ‘the Cypriot community’. The statement did not name Turkish Cypriots. No Turkish Cypriots or bodies representing them were consulted.
Cyprus is an island whose modern history has been shaped by displacement and violence on both sides. Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots alike were forced from villages and homes within living memory. The Turkish Cypriot community in the United Kingdom — over 300,000 people — carries that history alongside a Greek Cypriot community of similar scale. What ITV Studios’ apology did was name one of those communities as the recipient of offence, and treat the other as if it did not exist. This campaign is about that specific act of erasure, and about the deeper request that Britain learns to see Turkish Cypriots.
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 placed. 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 in Cyprus and who live in the UK, 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 — the erasure of an entire people.
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 simply writing to be known. The deeper ask is actually that Britain, and its national broadcaster, learn to see us.
Programme
Coronation Street, ITV1
Date of broadcast
6 August 2026
Where things stand
A formal complaint on this matter has been raised with ITV, with a parallel complaint to Ofcom under Sections Two (Harm and Offence) and Five (Due Impartiality) of the Broadcasting Code.
ITV Studios replied at Creative Director level. The reply did not answer any of the four questions.
ITV’s Complaints Handling Unit replied on 10 September, restating ITV’s editorial defence of the broadcast and referring the complainant to Ofcom. That reply did not engage with the public statement itself — which is the subject of the complaint — and did not answer any of the four questions.
On 15 September 2026 the complaint was formally escalated to the office of the Company Secretary of ITV plc — the statutory officer responsible for routing substantive external correspondence at Board level. Later the same day, the escalation was forwarded to the Complaints Handling Unit, who resent their 10 September letter as the response.
On 16 September 2026 a second escalation was sent to the Company Secretary rejecting the reframing of the complaint as an editorial-standards question, and putting the four questions again.
What we are asking ITV plc
Four questions. Put to ITV on 27 August, and again in the second escalation of 16 September. Neither ITV’s Complaints Handling Unit nor ITV Studios has answered them.
- Whether any Turkish Cypriot voices — internal staff, external community bodies, or subject specialists — were consulted before ITV Studios’ public statement was issued.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Your name on the public record
Sign the petition now.
Add your name and it appears on the live public count. Every signature is another named person asking ITV plc the same four questions.
Sign the public petition → Opens Change.org · takes ten secondsDirect email to ITV plc
Send the letter below to ITV plc’s Company Secretary. Choose the version that fits you, add your name and email, and the campaign sends it on your behalf.
Complain to Ofcom
Ofcom is the broadcasting regulator. A complaint to Ofcom about ITV Studios’ public statement adds to the regulatory record and strengthens the Section Two argument about harm and offence to a recognisable community.
The facts you’ll need
Broadcaster
ITV
Channel
ITV1
Programme
Coronation Street
Date of broadcast
6 August 2026
Sections of the Code
Two (Harm and Offence) · Five (Due Impartiality)
The values to enter
Ofcom’s form asks for these programme details in Section 1 of 3.
- Channel / station
ITV1- Date of broadcast
06/08/2026- Programme
Coronation Street- Time of broadcast
18:00
The subject line to paste
In Section 2 of 3, paste this into the “Subject” box.
ITV Studios public statement on Coronation Street — erasure of the Turkish Cypriot community
The complaint text to paste
In Section 2 of 3, paste this into the “Description” box.
I am complaining about the public statement issued by ITV Studios in early August 2026 following viewer objections to dialogue in Coronation Street (broadcast 6 August 2026 on ITV1) referring to the “Turkish” and “Greek” sides of Cyprus. My complaint is not about the original dialogue. It is about ITV Studios’ apology, which described the language as “imprecise” and expressed regret — but did so without ever naming the Turkish Cypriot people. That apology, on a national broadcaster, teaches its audience that the acknowledgement of our existence is the editorial error. I am asking Ofcom to consider this under Section Two (Harm and Offence): the statement caused offence to a recognisable audience group (the Turkish Cypriot community in the United Kingdom, numbering in the hundreds of thousands) by treating their existence as a script problem to be corrected out of view. I am also asking Ofcom to consider Section Five (Due Impartiality): the apology adopted one community’s objection while invalidating another community’s description of their own homeland. We are a people. We are not a mistake in the script.
How to submit it
Ofcom’s form has three sections. It takes a few minutes.
Section 1 of 3 — the programme
- Click the button below to open Ofcom’s complaint form in a new tab.
- Fill in the four boxes using the values above (ITV1, 06/08/2026, Coronation Street, 18:00).
- Click Proceed.
Section 2 of 3 — your complaint and your details
- In the Subject box, paste the subject line above.
- In the Description box, paste the complaint text above.
- Fill in your name, postcode, and email address. Ofcom needs these to log the complaint but does not publish them.
- Complete the spam check and click Proceed.
Section 3 of 3 — review and submit
- Review the details Ofcom shows you.
- Submit. Ofcom will send you a confirmation and reference number by email within a few days.
Share the campaign
The pressure comes from volume. Forward the link to one Turkish Cypriot family member. One non-Turkish-Cypriot friend who would stand with the community. One WhatsApp group. Every share matters more than the letter you just sent.