19 Nov 2015 | Cyprus, Europe and Central Asia, mobile, News and features
Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika reported on 30 August 2015 that the Turkish military forces in Cyprus had accused the paper of being against “the army and the flag”. Afrika’s articles had allegedly offended Turkish forces and made “people alienated from the army”, according to the case.
Editor-in-chief Sener Levent and writer Mahmut Anayasa, both of whom had shared an Afrika article from July on social media, were called to the prosecutor’s office for questioning. According to Costas Mavridis, a Greek Cypriot Member of the European Parliament, this is not the first time Levent has faced accusations. Both were later released.
After the questioning of Levent and Anayasa, Mavridis asked the European Commission about what actions are to be taken in order to protect the two European citizens.
“This action is clearly against human rights, specifically freedom of expression,” Mavridis said. He added that the only way for them to be safe is by making their case known to international and European public opinion, which is why he is proposing that Levent should be the Cypriot candidate for the European Citizen Prize 2015. “Sener Levent’s uninterrupted struggle for freedom of expression is a brave stance in favour of fundamental principles of the European culture at the risk of his life,” Mavridis said.
Yurdakul Cafer from the Association of Turkish Cypriot Journalists, speaking to Index on Censorship, stressed that, “media and the press in Northern Cyprus enjoy freedom of expression to a large degree”.
Before the opening of Afrika, Levent was to be the editor-in-chief of one of the first pro-European newspapers in Northern Cyprus, Avrupa, which means “Europe” in Turkish. According to a statement by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) from November 2000, the daily Avrupa was firebombed. “Extensive damage was caused and the printing house is no longer operating,” according to statement.
The IFJ had also noted that the attack “followed a period of court fines and official harassment designed to try to close down the newspaper”. Levent and other journalists were at the centre of these legal measures. As a result, the newspaper folded and was replaced by Afrika few years later.
The 2014 Freedom House report states that overall the situation of the media in Northern Cyprus is “free”. “Some media outlets are openly critical of the government,” it writes, although “in recent years some journalists who espouse anti-government positions were physically attacked, apparently by members of nationalist groups”.
“There were no such incidents in 2013,” the report concluded.
Cafer, who is also a news editor at Bayrak Radio Television, said that “despite Ankara’s strong political and military presence in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot newspapers, TV and radio stations are exceptionally democratic and open to discuss sensitive public, social and economic issues”.
The 2015 World Press Freedom Index placed the territory at 76 for media freedom in the world. Cyprus was ranked 24 in the world for press freedom. Turkey, which Northern Cyprus depends on, ranked 149 and continues to have high levels of violations against media, according to verified reports logged to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Cafer said that Levent “was taken to court on charges of espionage but the charges brought against him were not for what he wrote,” adding that “he has been released”. “If there is no trial or if you are not jailed then I don’t think that’s persecution. There is no pressure or persecution in TRNC,” Cafer said, claiming that a lot has changed since the 1996 assassination of Kutlu Adali.
Adali, a journalist for the Northern Cypriot newspaper Yeni Duzen, was fatally shot outside his home. According to Mavridis, before Adali’s assassination he had announced his willingness to reveal some facts about the government’s immigration policies, specifically the Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus. “Adali’s murder was a dark chapter in this country’s history, but there is no other incident like this one and that Turkey or TRNC does not exist anymore,” Cafer told Index on Censorship.
Overall, Cafer is optimistic about the future of media freedom in Northern Cyprus, while he points out that “the biggest problem and threat to peace and reconciliation in Cyprus” could be “online media”. “Many online news outlets,” he explained, “have popped up and many of them disregard the main principles of journalism or any code of ethics, spreading misinformation or doing more harm than good. I think we need more legislation that protects good journalism, not legislation that curtails freedoms,” he concluded.
However, Mavridis, using a phrase from another Turkish Cypriot journalist, who was prosecuted and threatened many times in the past, stresses that “even when a bird flies in Northern Cyprus, it’s with the permission or the tolerance of the manager of the Turkish occupying forces”.
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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This article was posted on 18 November 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
26 Nov 2014 | Cyprus, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
The empty walls following the confiscation of Paola Revenioti’s work (Photo: Accept)
Gay rights NGO Accept-Cyprus LGBT has slammed police censorship, after photographs of the Greek trans activist Paola Revenioti were confiscated and its chairman charged with exhibiting obscene material in a public space. Revenioti’s photo exhibition “Diorthosi” (Correction) was staged at Nicosia Municipal Market to mark Transgender Day on 20 November.
“This incident, unfortunately, was not something that surprised me. Censorship of art still exists in our so-called ‘democratic’ society,” Revenioti told Index on Censorship.
“Although this confiscation brought the issue of censorship to the forefront, which is a good thing, it overshadowed the essence of the exhibition, kept people away from the project. This is scandalous. Art is the way every one communicates his own truth. And with this action, they have vulgarised my own truth,” she stressed.
The exhibition, part of a series of events organised the NGO, was seized following a complaint by a citizen who disagreed with the content of the photographs which depicts life through the lens of Revenioti. Police acted without informing the municipality of Nicosia, which had licensed the space of the market for this exhibition, or the organisers, Accept said.
Costa Gavrielides, president of Accept, was questioned and officially charged with “publication of lewd content” in public space. Some of the photos eventually were returned, and others that depict male nudity were withheld as evidence for the subsequent trial.
The NGO filed an official complaint regarding the incident to the national anti-discrimination body, the Office of the Ombudsperson, and will further make a formal complaint to the local authorities as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission.
The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre condemned the action as an “overt form of censorship” that affects the artistic community of Cyprus.
“The police acted in a legal way,” was the response from police spokesperson Andreas Angelides.
This article was published on 26 November 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
9 Jul 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, Ireland, News and features, Statements
On 2 July, the Dáil passed the Defamation (Amendment) Bill by 83 votes to 61. The undersigned organisations are deeply disappointed that, although the Bill contains anti-SLAPP provisions, it fails to include the robust safeguards required to meaningfully protect public interest speech. Nearly a decade after the review of the Defamation Act 2009 began, this is a frustrating outcome and a missed opportunity to protect the freedom of expression that is the lifeblood of our democracy.
The Ireland Anti-SLAPP Network – a coalition of civil society organisations, media lawyers, and academics – has engaged with the government throughout this process in an effort to improve the Bill. We had proposed three targeted amendments that would have significantly strengthened the legislation. None of these have been incorporated.
While the Bill brings in provisions that give effect to aspects of the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive – its application to domestic defamation cases is welcome – it falls short of transposing the Directive’s full set of minimum standards and protections, which Ireland is legally required to implement in full by May 2026. The anti-SLAPP provisions in the Bill apply only to defamation proceedings, even though SLAPPs frequently exploit other causes of action including privacy, copyright, and data protection to intimidate and silence public interest speech. The government has provided no clear explanation of how it intends to extend protections beyond defamation in line with its EU obligations.
The legislation also omits key components of the Directive that could have been readily included. These include provision for third-party interventions in support of SLAPP defendants (Article 9), security for damages (Article 10) and a reversal of the burden of proof (Article 12). The legislation also fails to incorporate the protections against SLAPPs initiated in non-EU countries (Articles 16 and 17). By failing to incorporate these core safeguards, the Irish government exposes itself to potential infringement proceedings from the European Commission.
The government could and should have drawn on established international best practices, including the Council of Europe’s Recommendation on countering the use of SLAPPs. This Recommendation includes vital safeguards, such as an automatic stay of proceedings while an early dismissal motion is being heard, which are designed to protect against abusive litigation. It provides clear, practical guidance for safeguarding free expression and democratic accountability. Yet the government appears to have almost entirely disregarded it.
As the Bill goes to the Seanad today, the undersigned organisations call on senators to make the necessary amendments in order to ensure that Ireland seizes the opportunity to protect freedom of expression. If the current Bill is passed into law, journalists, human and environmental rights defenders, academics, and whistleblowers will remain vulnerable to abusive litigation aimed at silencing them.
Jessica Ní Mhainín, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Index on Censorship, said:
“It is ironic that this piece of legislation was passed in the Dáil on European Day of Action against SLAPPs because it completely fails to offer meaningful protection to SLAPP defendants. Its complex and flawed provisions risk becoming tools only accessible to those with significant legal resources — not the individuals most often targeted with SLAPPs. We need the senators to take action now to stop this inadequate Bill from being passed into law.”
Dr Francesca Farrington, Convener of the Anti-SLAPP Research Hub and Lecturer in Law at University of Aberdeen, said:
“The Dáil has failed to fully transpose the minimum standards and protections required by the Directive. At a time of great threat to democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, the government has missed a vital opportunity to champion freedom of expression and protect public watchdogs. If the directive is a floor, not a ceiling, this is somewhere in the basement, but there is still time to level up.”
Dr Eoin O’Dell, Associate Professor of Law in Trinity College Dublin, said:
“For a reform process that started with so much promise, the Bill has been a series of missed opportunities and profound disappointments. Nowhere is this clearer than in respect of its anti-SLAPP provisions, which are so grudging that they will be impotent in practice.”
SIGNED:
Index on Censorship
Anti-SLAPP Research Hub, University of Aberdeen
ARTICLE 19 Europe
Association of European Journalists
Blueprint for Free Speech
Civic Initiatives (Serbia)
ClientEarth
Coalition For Women In Journalism
Committee to Protect Journalists
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Foundation Atelier for Community Transformation – ACT, BiH
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
Global Witness
IFEX
Institute for Mass Media – IMME (Cyprus)
International News Safety Institute (INSI)
International Press Institute (IPI)
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties
Justice for Journalists Foundation (JFJ)
National Union of Journalists
PEN International
Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)
Rainforest Rescue
Reporters Shield
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)
Spotlight on Corruption (UK)
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
The Gemini Project
Transparency International Ireland
Wikimedia Europe
7 Dec 2023 | Chile, News and features, United States
It is oddly appropriate that Henry Kissinger should have died in the year that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile — the cataclysmic overthrow of its democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and the end of a fleeting attempt to create a socialist society without resorting to violence, a first in the history of revolutions.
As national security advisor to President Nixon, Kissinger ferociously opposed Allende and destabilized the Chilean government by every means possible. He considered that, were Chile’s peaceful movement for social and economic justice to succeed, American hegemony would suffer. He feared that the example might spread and affect the world balance of power.
And Kissinger not only fostered the ousting of a democratically elected foreign leader, he subsequently supported the murderous regime of General Augusto Pinochet, even as the dictatorship was massively violating the human rights of Chile’s citizens, most egregiously in the cruel and terrifying practice of “disappearing” opponents.
It is these desaparecidos whom I think about now, as Kissinger is feted by a shameless bipartisan Washington elite. All these years after the coup in Chile, 1,162 men and women are still unaccounted for. The contrast is telling and significant: Kissinger will have a memorable, almost regal, funeral, while the victims of his policies have yet to find a small place on Earth where they can be buried.
If my first thoughts, when I heard the news about Kissinger’s death, were filled with memories of my missing Chilean compatriots — several of them had been dear friends — soon enough a flood of other casualties came to mind: the countless dead, wounded and disappeared in Vietnam and Cambodia, in East Timor and Cyprus, Uruguay and Argentina. The Kurds Kissinger betrayed; the apartheid regime in South Africa he bolstered; the Bangladeshi dead he belittled.
I always dreamed that a day would come when Kissinger would stand in a court of law and answer for his crimes.
It almost happened. In May 2001, Kissinger was sojourning at the Ritz Hotel in Paris when he was summoned to appear before French Judge Roger Le Loire as a witness in the case of five French nationals who had been disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. Rather than take that occasion to explain himself and vindicate his reputation, Kissinger immediately fled France.
Nor was Paris the only city in which he was pursued. Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzón unsuccessfully requested that Interpol detain the former U.S. secretary of State to answer questions in the ongoing trial of Pinochet for human rights violations (the general was arrested in London but finally remanded to Chile, where he died, never convicted, in 2006).
Nor did Kissinger deign to respond to Argentine Judge Rodolfo Corral about the infamous and lethal U.S.-backed Operation Condor in Latin America, or to Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán about the murder of American citizen Charles Horman in the days just after the coup (a case that inspired the Costa Gavras film “Missing”).
And yet I nursed the impossible dream: Kissinger in the dock. Kissinger held accountable for so much suffering. A dream that vanished with his death.
The more reason for that trial to happen in the court of public opinion. The disappeared of Chile, the forgotten dead of all those nations Kissinger devastated with his “realpolitik,” are crying out for justice.
I do not wish that Kissinger may rest in peace. I hope, on the contrary, that the ghosts of those multitudes he damaged beyond repair will trouble his memory and haunt his history.
Whether that happens depends, of course, on us, the living, on the willingness of humanity, amid the din and deluge of praise and eulogies, to listen to the hushed, receding voices of Kissinger’s victims and vow never to forget.
This article was originally published by the LA Times and republished here with permission
