(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the multiple pressure, hindrances and attacks on the press in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) during 2001. According to RSF, the harassment against the Turkish Cypriot opposition daily “Avrupa”, which was forced to shut down during the weekend of 15 to 16 December and begin publishing under a […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the multiple pressure, hindrances and attacks on the press in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) during 2001. According to RSF, the harassment against the Turkish Cypriot opposition daily “Avrupa”, which was forced to shut down during the weekend of 15 to 16 December and begin publishing under a new name (“Afrika”), is illustrative of the overall deterioration of press freedom in the Turkish part of the island.
According to information collected by RSF, the Turkish Cypriot opposition daily “Avrupa”, known for its intense criticism of Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Dentkash and his policies, closed during the weekend of 15 to 16 December, finally gagged by multiple sentences and fines. The daily, which was charged and sentenced for libeling Dentkash in 1999, could not pay the damages claimed by the plaintiff, which exceed 200 billion Turkish liras (approx. US$138,700;153,800 euros).
On 12 December, the Turkish Cypriot authorities seized furniture and equipment, as well as printing materials at the daily’s premises. On 11 December, a court ordered that the newspaper’s revenues, valued at 5 billion Turkish liras (approx. US$3,435; 3,830 euros) per week, be seized.
On 9 November, the daily’s computers were seized on the pretext of outstanding taxes. According to Sener Levent, the newspaper’s owner and editor-in-chief, the seizure was in response to articles in the daily that denounced threats by Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ismail Cem against the Republic of Cyprus (south). Indeed, one week earlier, Ecevit had announced that should Cyprus join the European Union, Turkey would consider annexing the northern half of the island, which it has occupied since 1974.
On 24 May, a bomb exploded at the daily’s printing office buildings in Nicosia. There were no casualties. On the evening of 23 May, more than 500 insulting messages were sent to the daily by e-mail. According to an investigation by the newspaper “Yenicag gazetesi”, the messages all originated from the TRNC army’s military academy.
In July 2000, after the newspaper criticised the presence of 35,000 soldiers in the TRNC, Levent and three other “Avrupa” journalists were accused of spying for the Greek half of the island and kept in custody for several days.
Levent, who receives death threats regularly from what he believes to be paramilitary forces, explained that he chose the new name of “Afrika” for his newspaper because Cyprus “is no longer looking towards Europe but is instead turning back to prehistory, towards Africa.”
