Kurds demonstrate against Erdogan

Kurds living in Cyprus held a march in Nicosia on Tuesday protesting the arrest and imprisonment of MPs of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) demanding Recep Tayyip Erdogan stop his dictatorial and expansionist policies.

The demonstration started outside the interior ministry before moving on to European Union House where resolutions were handed to the press office of the European parliament and the European commission delegation.

The demonstrators then made their way to the embassies of France and Germany.

The European Union issued a strong new call on Turkey on Tuesday to resume political dialogue with opposition groups and safeguard its democracy, describing recent developments as “extremely worrying”.

The statement, issued a day before an annual EU assessment of Turkey’s progress on meeting criteria for EU accession, noted discussion in Ankara of reintroducing the death penalty following July’s failed military coup, a crackdown on the media and the arrests last week of Kurdish lawmakers.

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.