When Istanbul swimwear manufacturers Kom, Nelson, Ay-Yildiz, and Zeki Triko attempted to rent billboards and other outdoor advertising space to promote their 2007 designs, they were told that the Istanbul municipality would not issue permits for their posters, as it deems them "against morality."

The companies then applied to the municipality’s City Planning Directorate to obtain permits to display their ads on building facades, but permission was denied on grounds that the posters were "immorally provocative" – even those showing the most modest swimsuits.

The directorate also banned the fashion houses from displaying the posters even in their own manufacturing plants.

Zeki Triko Company owner Zeki Baseskioglu said that widened bans had been in place since Erdogan’s was mayor of the city. "We submit applications to post our ads on the billboards, but the municipality waits until after the summer season is over to respond. Therefore, we cannot advertise outdoors anywhere in Istanbul. This year, we will have to use eggplants and cucumbers [as models], and dress them with this year's swimsuits in new fashion colors."

During Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s term as Istanbul mayor, the Zeki Triko had faced a similar ban, and had protested by printing and posting across the city large posters of a swimsuit-clad Ataturk swimming, with the caption, "We Miss the Sun" (a reference to Ataturk’s enlightenment versus the darkness of Islamist fundamentalism).

Source: Hurriyet, Posta, Milliyet, Turkey, May 16, 2007