Cartoon protest outside Kibris office

 

Around 80 hard-line, Turkish nationalists gathered outside the offices of Kibris Media Group in the north on Sunday morning, to protest about a cartoon published by the group’s daily newspaper last May.

Members of the Rebirth Party (YDP) and of more than 10 non-governmental organisations established by Turkish settlers in the north, laid black wreaths in front of the building and demanded the cartoonist was sacked. They also demanded that Kibris newspaper apologised for what they described as a “racist” and “divisive” cartoon.

The cartoon in question portrays a tourist ship arriving in the north from which exit men holding assault weapons. Its aim was to satirise the fact that courts in the north were dealing with many cases of people that arrived as tourists but ended up being involved in crimes. One such case concerned a man who tried to rob a bus, two hours after arriving in the north.

Although there was no suggestion in the cartoon of the nationality of the people arriving, the protesting groups felt that it was portraying immigrants from Turkey as criminals.

 

Protesters carried flags of Turkey and of the breakaway regime and chanted slogans such as “Cyprus is Turkish, it will remain Turkish”.

In a written statement, read during the protest by YDP General Secretary Bertan Zaroglu, the daily was accused of being “ungrateful” for publishing such a cartoon after Turkey saved the lives of many Turkish Cypriots and helped them survive by giving them money.

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.