By a Staff Reporter
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Tassos Papadopoulos and the leader of AKEL Demetris Christofias, were both on the receiving end of a barrage of condemnation yesterday for intervening in the work of journalists and hindering the freedom of speech.
Christofias, whose party is backing Papadopoulos’ ticket, on Tuesday interrupted a live prime-time radio show on state-controlled CyBC to reprimand the presenter for not doing her job properly because, as he claimed, she was asking the foreign minister ‘loaded’ questions.
On the same day Papadopoulos threatened a television station he would pull out of a live interview if a specific journalist were not taken off the panel.
At the same time Papadopoulos’ staff issued an announcement accusing a second journalist, who had taken part in a television interview on Monday, of launching a “defamatory attack” against their candidate.
During the interview the journalist pointed out to Papadopoulos that his education policy document contained numerous spelling and syntax mistakes and wondered whether they were going to be employed at the education ministry if he were elected president.
Papadopoulos’ staff conceded there were four or five typos, which they said was normal.
In a counter statement the journalist maintained that he was ready to indicate many more grammatical errors than just four or five.
Yesterday, AKEL’s mouthpiece Haravghi, launched a scathing attack against the journalist, charging that he was under the orders of the presidential palace and DISY chief Nicos Anastassiades.
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou urged Papadopoulos and his supporters not to let the election carry them away into practices and mentalities of the past.
“I express my sadness and disappointment because yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) incident, where Christofias exerted pressure on a CyBC reporter, was not an isolated one.
“In three instances, attempts were made to put pressure on journalists – and these are only those which saw the public light,” Papapetrou said.
The spokesman said it was unacceptable to use pressure to decide who would interview candidates, noting that he could have filed many libel suits against specific newspapers but he chose not to because a politician should be tolerant of such practises.
The journalists union yesterday censured both leaders’ actions, stressing that journalists rejected any attempts made to intervene, influence, pressure, blackmail, threaten or gag the media. The union expressed its worry and displeasure at the interventions from politicians and other circles in the work of journalists.
Attorney-general Alecos Markides condemned the phenomenon and described it as a “worrying sign of the mentality of those supposedly supporting change”.
“Such practices are not only directed against journalists but are especially aimed at a every person’s freedom of speech and expression,” Markides said.
He added: “Is this the change Mr Papadopoulos and the parties which support him want to bring to the country?”
DISY spokesman Tasos Mitsopoulos said these “phenomena were indicative of an authoritarian and dated mentality, which take us back to politicians of other eras”.
“It is with sadness that we see a presidential candidate wanting to impose the journalists of his liking and decide who would be opposite him every time,” Mitsopoulos said.
Commenting on his demand to remove a journalist from the panel, Papadopoulos said he had the right to protect himself and the matter had nothing to do with the freedom of speech.
He said the newspaper the particular journalist worked for wrote abusive articles with twisted facts aiming to hurt him.
Concerning the mistakes in his education programme, Papadopoulos said his staff simply wrote a letter indicating that his 14-page pamphlet contained four typos and one syntax error.
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.
