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Istanbul-based Acik Radyo on Wednesday was shut down by authorities, six months after a guest talked about the "Armenian genocide" on air, AFP reported.

But the radio station has vowed to fight on and find a way to keep working.

"We will continue to exist," Didem Gencturk, Acik Radyo's broadcast coordinator, said minutes before the station went off the air.

Turkey's broadcasting watchdog RTUK had already suspended Acik Radyo for five days in May for the same programme, which it said incited hatred.

The media regulator withdrew the station's licence in July but the radio had been broadcasting until now.

The sanctions came after a guest on a show in April called the 1915 killings of Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire "genocide". It is a term many historians agree on but which Turkish governments have fiercely disputed.

Acik Radyo urged its listeners to raise "an even clearer and louder voice" against the shutdown.

"Our radio has become an amplifier for public voices in many fields from the struggle for climate and the environment to public health, and from gender equality to multiculturalism," the station said Friday.

"Acik Radyo has not restricted itself to radio frequencies, and there can be no doubt that it will continue its duty as an independent medium," it added.

The station's print website was available Wednesday, but without sound and its radio frequency was silent.

"Our radio cannot and will not be silenced."

Acik Radyo said it would pursue legal means against the measure.

The station, which has been broadcasting for three decades, describes itself as a station "open to all sounds, colours and vibrations of the universe".

Turkey is ranked in 158th place out of 180 countries in its index of press freedom this year.