Journalists arrested in the north

THE OWNER of the opposition Turkish Cypriot newspaper Avrupa and four journalists of the Press Union were arrested yesterday by ‘police’ in the north when they began a campaign to raise money to buy computers for the paper.

The computer systems at Avrupa were seized last week by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s lawyer, Fuat Veziroglu, to cover the court expenses of a libel trial that Denktash instituted against the paper.

At the time of their arrest, Press Union President Heseyin Yalyali and fellow union board members Kemal Darbaz, Sami Ozuslu, Zafer Kodan and Avrupa owner Shener Levent were accused of collecting money in public at Kyrenia gate without permission.

They were released after being held for two hours.

The occupation ‘authorities’said the journalists will be taken to ‘court’.

Press Union chairman Huseyin Yalyali said after being released that he and his fellow union board members could not except the charges, which were ultimately aimed at halting their democratic right to gather news.

Levent said he rejected all the charges filed against him by the Denktash regime.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.