Media blamed over English School attack

THE MEDIA Complaints Commission yesterday berated the media’s role in the recent violent attack against the English School’s Turkish Cypriot pupils, though no punishments were announced.

The media – and newspaper Simerini in particular – were widely blamed for sparking the attack 15-20 Greek Cypriot pupils from surrounding state schools, after reporting that a Turkish Cypriot pupil had spat at a Greek Cypriot’s crucifix. The claim was played down by the school’s headmaster, who said the 12-year-old boy had actually spat at the ground.

Simerini had also reported that Turkish Cypriot pupils in the School were enjoying preferential behaviour at the expense of their Greek Cypriot classmates.

In an announcement, the Commission stressed “the high duty of the media and its operators to respect and promote democracy and the other humanitarian values, to respect and promote human rights and everybody’s basic freedoms and to avoid references against people that contain elements of discrimination based on nationality, colour, language, religion, ethnic or social origin.”

The announcement avoids naming specific media outlets, and kept itself to general condemnations.

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.