The Eurotaliban Cypriots issue:
The Greek Orthodox Taliban Athanasios
The author of the article use the word Taliban
http://www.workersdemocracy.net/123/sel4.htm
The Greek Cypriot Orthodox Taliban priest says what the god Aphrodite of agent Greece is satanic.
The author of the article use the word Taliban
http://www.makarios.ws/cgibin/hweb?-A=475&-V=nicosia
This article is from amazon and you can find the link at the end of it:
I am a displaced "greek" Cypriot from the occupied part of Cyprus.
This film fails to show what led to Turkey's invation nor any of the atrocities the stronger greek majority commited against the weaker turkish minority which we oppressed for years.
A turkish-Cypriot could find no job even as a waiter and we forced them to live in ghettos, in terrible poverty.
IT WAS GREECE WHICH RAPED CYPRUS FIRST!
In 1974 I was fourteen and I recall the first civilian casualties being from Greek tanks. Turkish tanks landed on the island a whole week later.
This is never mentioned in our History textbooks.
Most of us have been brainwashed through an intensely hellinocentric education where Greeks are always the good guys and the innocent victims , and through Greek Orthodox Religious Studies (an obligatory school subject since age five). Our schools turn out racist Orthodox talibans who are totally intolerant of other religions, including other Christian denominations, and especially hostile towards Moslems. And when these talibans commit racist crimes (as in the 2005 murder of a turkish-Cypriot boy in Limassol) the press describe them simply as remote cases of mental illness instead of as bi-products of our education system.
The church here is so influential that I consider my country as the "Iran of the Christian World". There even exist Iran-type church courts which nowadays (fortunately) deal mainly with Family Law cases.
The Republic of Cyprus is the only European Union country where authorities violate human rights (US State Department Report on Human Rights, 2006) and the police tortures citizens (Amnesty International Press Release on the torture of two handcuffed students by 12 policemen, April 2006).
Not that the situation in the occupied northern part is better but at least it is a secular state where moslem clergy have no political power and it does not foster the illusion of being a "European" country.
Although the so-called "official" Republic of Cyprus is an independent member of the UN and the European Union it is in fact A PUPPET STATE OF GREECE:
We have been let to consider ourselves Greeks and not Cypriots. If Greece wins in an international contest in which Cyprus has lost, we celebrate as if our own country has won.
Cyprus is the only country in the world without its own National Anthem (we use Greece's).
Our national flag is semi-official (it is subordinate to the Greek flag which is conspicuous on all government buildings, schools, churches, clubs, in the army, even in football matches).
Major political decisions taken by our governement must first obtain the O.K. of the Greek prime minister.
Our army is run by officers from Greece.
We are ashamed to call ourselves simply as citizens of our own country without any prefixes. If a native dares call himself a Cypriot and not a Greek he is accused of being a traitor.
In April 2004 the United Nations, with the support of the United States, carried out a referendum for peace and reunification. The vast majority of greek-Cypriots voted No, employing all sorts of excuses (the president even wept on TV in his attempt to convince people vote No), while turkish-Cypriots voted Yes.
This has been repeated in the May 2006 parliamentary elections. The parties that won were those that reject peace and reunification. It seems that for most of us the ideal solution is the construction of a Time-Machine that would take us all back to before 1974 and reestablish greek dynasty in the island.
It is my opinion that this film is biased and superficial. It does little to de-program severely brainwashed greek-Cypriots and let younger generations know what really happened in 1974 so it won't happen again.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custom ... 57-1144966
My first comment:
There is a brain wash machine powered from the orthodox talibans and now from the fascist president Mr Tasos Papadopoulos.
I’ll continue this issue with more relative information if there is a democracy in this forum.
I’m not using offensive words I’m just trying to describe the problem.
The Eurotalibans Brainwash
8 posts
• Page 1 of 1
The Eurotalibans Brainwash
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:14 am
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:50 am
EOKA Strikes Again
By Alexander Kitroeff
“You remember the farcical situation we got ourselves into over the name, Macedonia, a decade ago?” intoned one of the roundtable panelists solemnly. “We may be facing a similar predicament at this very moment over the way we remember the Cypriot organization EOKA,” he continued. The audience at the National Research Foundation in downtown Athens fell very still.
The speaker, Philippos Iliou, a well-known intellectual of the left, pulled a copy of the Sunday edition of the reputable Athens daily, To Vima, out of his bag. “I have obtained an advance copy of tomorrow’s newspaper, and in it there is an attack on one of our colleagues, who dared question the heroic myths that surround EOKA’s activities,” Iliou said. “It is precisely this type of vehement nationalistic language launched through the pages of the press that led to the nationalist campaign over Macedonia’s name.”
The audience was certainly getting more than it had bargained for at a late Saturday evening session that was supposed to wrap up a three-day academic conference on the history of the Greek press. Most of the panelists and audience members had not, in fact, attended the earlier, more mundane segments of the conference. The final session, a roundtable, included several of Athens’s best-known public intellectuals, who were to offer their views on the current state of the Greek media rather than comment on the conference’s themes.
Iliou’s announcement was the equivalent of breaking news although the story itself had begun a few weeks earlier in Cyprus. Ouranios Ioannides, the Cypriot minister of education, had discovered something he did not like in a new history textbook produced in Greece for high-school students. He took exception to the following sentence in particular: “At a time when the Third World was being shaken by radical anti-colonial movements that pursued national liberation as well as social progress, in Cyprus General Grivas’s EOKA was imbued by a socially conservative nationalism.”
The Cypriot minister was very unhappy with the conservative label attached to EOKA, the Cypriot organization founded in 1955 to fight against the British and for union with Greece. Its acronym stands for National Organization of Cypriot Fighters and its role in Cyprus’s struggle for independence, which was ultimately achieved in 1960, is revered on the island, as the minister’s ire indicates. Rather than pen some sort of rebuttal, however, Ioannides spoke out against the book at an event in the Greek embassy in Nicosia, saying that he objected to the book’s description of EOKA. Greek ambassador Christos Panagopoulos publicly agreed with him. In Athens, opposition New Democracy deputy Alexandros Lykourezos tabled a parliamentary question asking the Greek ministry of education what it intended to do.
The response was swift. Petros Efthimiou, the minister of education, announced that the offending phrase would be eliminated and directives would be sent to teachers to honor the Cypriots’ national-liberation struggle. “That was a fascist move,” Iliou told his hushed audience, “and, yes, one of you please communicate my description to my friend, Petros.” Perhaps the epithet owed something to the heat of the moment, but Iliou’s indignation is understandable. Efthimiou had not even seen the book – which had not been published yet – unless he had taken the galleys with him to China, which is where he happened to be when he issued his order to “honor” Cyprus’s national liberation struggle. Moreover, Minister Efthimiou was unconcerned that the offending textbook was the collective work of 10 academics and had been selected as the best text out of several manuscripts submitted to the Pedagogical Institute, a non-governmental organization that oversees the production and selection of Greek textbooks.
Non-governmental institutions don’t count for much in Greece, however, and they know it. Within the next few days, the Institute’s head duly announced that, while it was too late to withdraw the book, the chapter mentioning EOKA would be deleted. Furthermore, the offending chapter would be replaced by one on the Cypriot struggle to be sent from Cyprus. The conservative press in Athens was in celebratory mood. A “Historic Change thanks to Lykourezos,” cried Apogevmatini, while Agamemnon Farakos, writing in Vradyni, referred to “pseudo-Marxists” trying to brainwash high-school students being stopped in their tracks.
Pro-nationalist voices became a little more sophisticated when Antonis Liakos, professor of history at the University of Athens, wrote an op-ed piece in To Vima deploring the attacks on the textbook. He also noted that all Greek Cypriots did not support EOKA and that the organization persecuted some of its left-wing opponents. Liakos suggested that its heroic image was myth rather than history and should be scrutinized further by historians.
The sharpness of the subsequent nationalist riposte in the same newspaper on May 26 was what exercised Iliou to the degree that he warned the roundtable audience that there was a danger that the press would be turned into a nationalist-mongering vehicle. Former PASOK minister Stelios Papathemelis, one of the prime movers of the campaign to prevent the republic of Macedonia from choosing its own name, wrote that EOKA’s struggle was supported by all Cypriots and typified “what was most honest, sacred, and just that Hellenism has achieved over the centuries”; indeed, according to Minister Papathemelis, it brought about the spiritual communion of Hellenism in Cyprus, Greece, and the entire world. He also expressed strong views about the value of historical revisionism and said that the term, “hyper-conservative nationalism,” to describe EOKA was “an insult to [Greek] collective memory and intelligence.”
Nike Loizidi, professor of art history at the University of Thessaloniki, was also critical of the textbook and of Liakos’s suggestion that EOKA’s mythical status was in need of some historical revision. Had the outcome of the Cyprus question been more positive for the Greek side, she implied, then the reassessment of history would have been a less serious matter. It was not acceptable at a time of ongoing negotiations over the island’s future, however. “The correct use of history,” Professor Loizidi warned, “entails a coolheaded and complex engagement with the events of the past as well as current developments.”
Although it is unlikely that this backlash against the reinterpretation of Cyprus’s recent history will lead to a Macedonia-is-Greek-type campaign, it is a useful reminder of how obsessed Greece is with its past. There were several anniversaries in late May that were reverently memorialized in Athens during the same weekend that the pro-EOKA articles appeared in To Vima. They included the fall of Constantinople (1453), the uprooting of the Pontian Greeks (1920), the Battle of Crete (1941), and the creation of the “Second Program” on Greek Radio (1952).
When one is so focused on commemorating past events through ceremonies carried on several state and private television channels, how can one accept that historical myths can be challenged, let alone revised? EOKA’s struggle in Cyprus is officially commemorated in Athens in many ways, not least by the naming of streets. In greater Athens, there are 26 streets named “Karaoli and Dimitriou,” after two EOKA fighters executed by the British (one street is outside the British embassy), 18 named after EOKA fighter Grigoris Afxentiou, and nine streets that simply go by the name of “Cypriot Fighters.”
Clearly, EOKA’s history from 1955 to 1960 is still taboo to historians in Greece. History as memory is easier and more gratifying than critical introspection. We will obviously have to wait a little longer before we can benefit from some academic reevaluation of the Greek Cypriot struggle in the 1950s and, especially, of EOKA’s theory and practice.
Alexander Kitroeff teaches history at Haverford College and is a contributing editor to greekworks.com, which published his most recent book, Wrestling With the Ancients: Modern Greek Identity and the Olympics.
-------------------------------------------------
The most members of my family were members of EOKA. I’m not against the fight we have made. I’m against to spreading a myth which is negative for our future.
The EOKA was necessary but there is no need to spread nationalistic bullshits and to behave like Taliban in science matters and allow the propaganda brainwash because it’s in holy ground.
By Alexander Kitroeff
“You remember the farcical situation we got ourselves into over the name, Macedonia, a decade ago?” intoned one of the roundtable panelists solemnly. “We may be facing a similar predicament at this very moment over the way we remember the Cypriot organization EOKA,” he continued. The audience at the National Research Foundation in downtown Athens fell very still.
The speaker, Philippos Iliou, a well-known intellectual of the left, pulled a copy of the Sunday edition of the reputable Athens daily, To Vima, out of his bag. “I have obtained an advance copy of tomorrow’s newspaper, and in it there is an attack on one of our colleagues, who dared question the heroic myths that surround EOKA’s activities,” Iliou said. “It is precisely this type of vehement nationalistic language launched through the pages of the press that led to the nationalist campaign over Macedonia’s name.”
The audience was certainly getting more than it had bargained for at a late Saturday evening session that was supposed to wrap up a three-day academic conference on the history of the Greek press. Most of the panelists and audience members had not, in fact, attended the earlier, more mundane segments of the conference. The final session, a roundtable, included several of Athens’s best-known public intellectuals, who were to offer their views on the current state of the Greek media rather than comment on the conference’s themes.
Iliou’s announcement was the equivalent of breaking news although the story itself had begun a few weeks earlier in Cyprus. Ouranios Ioannides, the Cypriot minister of education, had discovered something he did not like in a new history textbook produced in Greece for high-school students. He took exception to the following sentence in particular: “At a time when the Third World was being shaken by radical anti-colonial movements that pursued national liberation as well as social progress, in Cyprus General Grivas’s EOKA was imbued by a socially conservative nationalism.”
The Cypriot minister was very unhappy with the conservative label attached to EOKA, the Cypriot organization founded in 1955 to fight against the British and for union with Greece. Its acronym stands for National Organization of Cypriot Fighters and its role in Cyprus’s struggle for independence, which was ultimately achieved in 1960, is revered on the island, as the minister’s ire indicates. Rather than pen some sort of rebuttal, however, Ioannides spoke out against the book at an event in the Greek embassy in Nicosia, saying that he objected to the book’s description of EOKA. Greek ambassador Christos Panagopoulos publicly agreed with him. In Athens, opposition New Democracy deputy Alexandros Lykourezos tabled a parliamentary question asking the Greek ministry of education what it intended to do.
The response was swift. Petros Efthimiou, the minister of education, announced that the offending phrase would be eliminated and directives would be sent to teachers to honor the Cypriots’ national-liberation struggle. “That was a fascist move,” Iliou told his hushed audience, “and, yes, one of you please communicate my description to my friend, Petros.” Perhaps the epithet owed something to the heat of the moment, but Iliou’s indignation is understandable. Efthimiou had not even seen the book – which had not been published yet – unless he had taken the galleys with him to China, which is where he happened to be when he issued his order to “honor” Cyprus’s national liberation struggle. Moreover, Minister Efthimiou was unconcerned that the offending textbook was the collective work of 10 academics and had been selected as the best text out of several manuscripts submitted to the Pedagogical Institute, a non-governmental organization that oversees the production and selection of Greek textbooks.
Non-governmental institutions don’t count for much in Greece, however, and they know it. Within the next few days, the Institute’s head duly announced that, while it was too late to withdraw the book, the chapter mentioning EOKA would be deleted. Furthermore, the offending chapter would be replaced by one on the Cypriot struggle to be sent from Cyprus. The conservative press in Athens was in celebratory mood. A “Historic Change thanks to Lykourezos,” cried Apogevmatini, while Agamemnon Farakos, writing in Vradyni, referred to “pseudo-Marxists” trying to brainwash high-school students being stopped in their tracks.
Pro-nationalist voices became a little more sophisticated when Antonis Liakos, professor of history at the University of Athens, wrote an op-ed piece in To Vima deploring the attacks on the textbook. He also noted that all Greek Cypriots did not support EOKA and that the organization persecuted some of its left-wing opponents. Liakos suggested that its heroic image was myth rather than history and should be scrutinized further by historians.
The sharpness of the subsequent nationalist riposte in the same newspaper on May 26 was what exercised Iliou to the degree that he warned the roundtable audience that there was a danger that the press would be turned into a nationalist-mongering vehicle. Former PASOK minister Stelios Papathemelis, one of the prime movers of the campaign to prevent the republic of Macedonia from choosing its own name, wrote that EOKA’s struggle was supported by all Cypriots and typified “what was most honest, sacred, and just that Hellenism has achieved over the centuries”; indeed, according to Minister Papathemelis, it brought about the spiritual communion of Hellenism in Cyprus, Greece, and the entire world. He also expressed strong views about the value of historical revisionism and said that the term, “hyper-conservative nationalism,” to describe EOKA was “an insult to [Greek] collective memory and intelligence.”
Nike Loizidi, professor of art history at the University of Thessaloniki, was also critical of the textbook and of Liakos’s suggestion that EOKA’s mythical status was in need of some historical revision. Had the outcome of the Cyprus question been more positive for the Greek side, she implied, then the reassessment of history would have been a less serious matter. It was not acceptable at a time of ongoing negotiations over the island’s future, however. “The correct use of history,” Professor Loizidi warned, “entails a coolheaded and complex engagement with the events of the past as well as current developments.”
Although it is unlikely that this backlash against the reinterpretation of Cyprus’s recent history will lead to a Macedonia-is-Greek-type campaign, it is a useful reminder of how obsessed Greece is with its past. There were several anniversaries in late May that were reverently memorialized in Athens during the same weekend that the pro-EOKA articles appeared in To Vima. They included the fall of Constantinople (1453), the uprooting of the Pontian Greeks (1920), the Battle of Crete (1941), and the creation of the “Second Program” on Greek Radio (1952).
When one is so focused on commemorating past events through ceremonies carried on several state and private television channels, how can one accept that historical myths can be challenged, let alone revised? EOKA’s struggle in Cyprus is officially commemorated in Athens in many ways, not least by the naming of streets. In greater Athens, there are 26 streets named “Karaoli and Dimitriou,” after two EOKA fighters executed by the British (one street is outside the British embassy), 18 named after EOKA fighter Grigoris Afxentiou, and nine streets that simply go by the name of “Cypriot Fighters.”
Clearly, EOKA’s history from 1955 to 1960 is still taboo to historians in Greece. History as memory is easier and more gratifying than critical introspection. We will obviously have to wait a little longer before we can benefit from some academic reevaluation of the Greek Cypriot struggle in the 1950s and, especially, of EOKA’s theory and practice.
Alexander Kitroeff teaches history at Haverford College and is a contributing editor to greekworks.com, which published his most recent book, Wrestling With the Ancients: Modern Greek Identity and the Olympics.
-------------------------------------------------
The most members of my family were members of EOKA. I’m not against the fight we have made. I’m against to spreading a myth which is negative for our future.
The EOKA was necessary but there is no need to spread nationalistic bullshits and to behave like Taliban in science matters and allow the propaganda brainwash because it’s in holy ground.
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:45 am
Papadopoulos propaganda:
Tassos Papadopoulos's latest wholly unsubstantiated claims, for which
he has provided absolutely no evidence, are the typical rejectionist propaganda, smears and lies. Apparently, God or Nature has decreed that all Greek Cypriots must be opposed to the United Nations Settlement, otherwise they can only be traitors who are being paid off by the "cowboy" "Yanks".
It appears that the rejectionists believe that Greeks are not allowed to have differing opinions and that open, honest, free and democratic debate should not take place within Greek or Greek Cypriot society. In any case, the Americans must obviously be paying off huge numbers of leading European Union politicians, since they are constantly coming out with criticisms of the Greek Cypriot position and expressions of support for the United Nations plan. And those hot-to-trot Yankie Ramboes must have paid Kofi Annan huge bucks.
Despina Christodoulou
------------------------
No one can speak against this democratic fascist, it must be a traitor or a troll
for more info here:
http://www.makarios.ws/cgibin/hweb?-A=980&-V=perireousa
Tassos Papadopoulos's latest wholly unsubstantiated claims, for which
he has provided absolutely no evidence, are the typical rejectionist propaganda, smears and lies. Apparently, God or Nature has decreed that all Greek Cypriots must be opposed to the United Nations Settlement, otherwise they can only be traitors who are being paid off by the "cowboy" "Yanks".
or trolls
It appears that the rejectionists believe that Greeks are not allowed to have differing opinions and that open, honest, free and democratic debate should not take place within Greek or Greek Cypriot society. In any case, the Americans must obviously be paying off huge numbers of leading European Union politicians, since they are constantly coming out with criticisms of the Greek Cypriot position and expressions of support for the United Nations plan. And those hot-to-trot Yankie Ramboes must have paid Kofi Annan huge bucks.
Despina Christodoulou
------------------------
No one can speak against this democratic fascist, it must be a traitor or a troll
for more info here:
http://www.makarios.ws/cgibin/hweb?-A=980&-V=perireousa
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:05 am
Human rights violations in Cyprus before the referendum
Cyprus Action Network http://www.cyprusaction.org 23 rd April, 2004
The Cyprus Action Network would like to bring to the international community’s attention the flood of human rights violations that have taken place in the days preceding the referendum on the 24 th of April. These violations fall into the following categories:
South Cyprus:·
Government misinformation: Local media and politicians reported that state ministers and officials terrorized government employees, claiming that if the Annan Plan were to be accepted there would be salary cuts, benefit and job losses.
In particular, the employees targeted were in the police force, in the military, and in the tourism industry (one of the largest, more profitable industries in the South).
Education: Teachers in public schools have been pressuring students to support a “NO” vote, encouraging nationalistic behavior and refusing room for discussion in the classroom.2 A discussion on the plan to be held at the English school was cancelled, and the student organizing it was threatened. Threats for the son of a high rank civil servant who resigned because of his disagreement with the
government were written on the walls.
Media misinformation: Both UN and EU mediators have been prevented from exposing their views in private and public media in the South.
Moreover, there are claims from politicians that the government had interfered with the operation of the state television channel, CyBC, and organized the president's interview right before the end of the campaign period to avoid the response of the "yes" side.
Miscellaneous: A Greek Orthodox bishop threatened voters with damnation if they support the United Nations plan.
The Church’s influence in the South should not be underestimated, where there is still a large number of practicing Greek Orthodox citizens.
Cyprus Action Network http://www.cyprusaction.org 23 rd April, 2004
The Cyprus Action Network would like to bring to the international community’s attention the flood of human rights violations that have taken place in the days preceding the referendum on the 24 th of April. These violations fall into the following categories:
South Cyprus:·
Government misinformation: Local media and politicians reported that state ministers and officials terrorized government employees, claiming that if the Annan Plan were to be accepted there would be salary cuts, benefit and job losses.
In particular, the employees targeted were in the police force, in the military, and in the tourism industry (one of the largest, more profitable industries in the South).
Education: Teachers in public schools have been pressuring students to support a “NO” vote, encouraging nationalistic behavior and refusing room for discussion in the classroom.2 A discussion on the plan to be held at the English school was cancelled, and the student organizing it was threatened. Threats for the son of a high rank civil servant who resigned because of his disagreement with the
government were written on the walls.
Media misinformation: Both UN and EU mediators have been prevented from exposing their views in private and public media in the South.
Moreover, there are claims from politicians that the government had interfered with the operation of the state television channel, CyBC, and organized the president's interview right before the end of the campaign period to avoid the response of the "yes" side.
Miscellaneous: A Greek Orthodox bishop threatened voters with damnation if they support the United Nations plan.
The Church’s influence in the South should not be underestimated, where there is still a large number of practicing Greek Orthodox citizens.
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:13 am
North Cyprus:
State supported terrorizing of citizens: The well-known ultra-nationalist group, Grey Wolves, have been threatening citizens in the North, and are among those suspected of beating up motorcyclists carrying "vote yes" banners.7 The Grey Wolves are openly supported by the leader of the North, Rauf Denktash.
Denktash and Dektashopoulos in the same boat of fascism.
for more information:
http://www.tech4peace.org/media/PDF/CAN ... 240404.pdf
State supported terrorizing of citizens: The well-known ultra-nationalist group, Grey Wolves, have been threatening citizens in the North, and are among those suspected of beating up motorcyclists carrying "vote yes" banners.7 The Grey Wolves are openly supported by the leader of the North, Rauf Denktash.
Denktash and Dektashopoulos in the same boat of fascism.
for more information:
http://www.tech4peace.org/media/PDF/CAN ... 240404.pdf
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:23 am
Copyright 2004 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)
April 20, 2004 Tuesday
London Edition 1
SECTION: EUROPE; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 489 words
HEADLINE: EU hits at perceived ban from Greek Cypriot TV REUNIFICATION
PLAN VOTE:
BYLINE: By JUDY DEMPSEY
DATELINE: BRUSSELS
Top European Union and United Nations officials are being prevented from giving interviews to Greek Cypriot television before Saturday's crucial referendum on a UN peace plan for ending the division of the island, according to EU officials.
The officials yesterday said state and private Greek Cypriot channels were
refusing to carry interviews by Gunter Verheugen, the enlargement
commissioner, who has steered Cyprus over the past five years through
difficult accession negotiations to be ready to join the Union on May 1.
Officials said the television stations were also preventing Alvaro de
Soto, the UN's special envoy to Cyprus, from giving interviews. He was
going to appear on CyBC, the state broadcasting channel last week, but his appearance was cancelled.
The Cypriot government yesterday denied any form of censorship.
"The government categorically states that it had never intervened, not
does it intend to intervene in any way. This would be against the freedom
of expression which the government fully respects and upholds," said
Kypros Chrysostomides, government spokesman.
Commission officials, however, insisted Mr. Verheugen was not being allowed to appear on television.
"We were told the EU people would be interfering in the internal affairs,"
said an official. "Mr. Verheugen only wanted to explain and inform the
public about the UN plan, not attempt to influence the vote any way," he
added.
At issue is how to explain the UN plan to the widest possible audience.
The EU, which always wanted a united island to join, fears the Greek
Cypriots, led by Tassos Papadopoulos, could say No to the referendum
because of how the plan is being presented.
Even if they vote No, they will still join the EU next month. But the
Turkish Cypriots, who are expected to say Yes, will not be allowed to join
because of the plan's rejection by one side. Diplomats said Mr.
Papadopoulos, who has openly told voters to reject the plan, was behind
the television ban.
"He is using all his old-fashioned propaganda to bring out the
rejectionist mentality among Greek Cypriots," said a European diplomat. Even some local Greek Cypriot journalists have sharply criticised Mr.
Papadopoulos's methods.
An op-ed opinion piece in the most recent edition of the Sunday Mail, a
liberal English language daily for the Greek Cypriot community, wrote: "In
the highly likely event that the No vote wins, on May 1, we will be the
first police state to become a full member of the EU.
"This is no joke. We are witnessing the state engaging in open sup-
pression of information, blatant lies and the imposition of its views on
citizens," it added.
The Commission would not say openly if Cyprus was in breach of the EU's
own special "Copenhagen criteria" or rules that make freedom of the press one of the main preconditions for accession.
"I will leave it up to you if you think it is censorship," said
Jean-Christophe Filori, spokesman for Mr. Verheugen.
LOAD-DATE: April 19, 2004
Financial Times (London, England)
April 20, 2004 Tuesday
London Edition 1
SECTION: EUROPE; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 489 words
HEADLINE: EU hits at perceived ban from Greek Cypriot TV REUNIFICATION
PLAN VOTE:
BYLINE: By JUDY DEMPSEY
DATELINE: BRUSSELS
Top European Union and United Nations officials are being prevented from giving interviews to Greek Cypriot television before Saturday's crucial referendum on a UN peace plan for ending the division of the island, according to EU officials.
The officials yesterday said state and private Greek Cypriot channels were
refusing to carry interviews by Gunter Verheugen, the enlargement
commissioner, who has steered Cyprus over the past five years through
difficult accession negotiations to be ready to join the Union on May 1.
Officials said the television stations were also preventing Alvaro de
Soto, the UN's special envoy to Cyprus, from giving interviews. He was
going to appear on CyBC, the state broadcasting channel last week, but his appearance was cancelled.
The Cypriot government yesterday denied any form of censorship.
"The government categorically states that it had never intervened, not
does it intend to intervene in any way. This would be against the freedom
of expression which the government fully respects and upholds," said
Kypros Chrysostomides, government spokesman.
Commission officials, however, insisted Mr. Verheugen was not being allowed to appear on television.
"We were told the EU people would be interfering in the internal affairs,"
said an official. "Mr. Verheugen only wanted to explain and inform the
public about the UN plan, not attempt to influence the vote any way," he
added.
At issue is how to explain the UN plan to the widest possible audience.
The EU, which always wanted a united island to join, fears the Greek
Cypriots, led by Tassos Papadopoulos, could say No to the referendum
because of how the plan is being presented.
Even if they vote No, they will still join the EU next month. But the
Turkish Cypriots, who are expected to say Yes, will not be allowed to join
because of the plan's rejection by one side. Diplomats said Mr.
Papadopoulos, who has openly told voters to reject the plan, was behind
the television ban.
"He is using all his old-fashioned propaganda to bring out the
rejectionist mentality among Greek Cypriots," said a European diplomat. Even some local Greek Cypriot journalists have sharply criticised Mr.
Papadopoulos's methods.
An op-ed opinion piece in the most recent edition of the Sunday Mail, a
liberal English language daily for the Greek Cypriot community, wrote: "In
the highly likely event that the No vote wins, on May 1, we will be the
first police state to become a full member of the EU.
"This is no joke. We are witnessing the state engaging in open sup-
pression of information, blatant lies and the imposition of its views on
citizens," it added.
The Commission would not say openly if Cyprus was in breach of the EU's
own special "Copenhagen criteria" or rules that make freedom of the press one of the main preconditions for accession.
"I will leave it up to you if you think it is censorship," said
Jean-Christophe Filori, spokesman for Mr. Verheugen.
LOAD-DATE: April 19, 2004
- webmagus
- Member
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
by webmagus » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:30 am
Cypriots who back UN plan face damnation, says bishop.
By Eric Silver in Nicosia.
BARELY A week before Greek and Turkish Cypriots vote for or against
reunification of this divided island, a leading Orthodox bishop has
threatened Greek voters with damnation if they support the United Nations
plan.
In a sermon, the Bishop of Kyrenia cited St Paul, who said the unjust would not inherit the kingdom of heaven. "Consequently," he warned, "those who say yes will be party to an injustice. They will lose their homeland and the kingdom of heaven."
The Turkish army occupied the outspoken cleric's north-coast diocese in
1974 and repopulated it with Turkish Cypriot refugees and mainland
settlers. Red star and crescent Turkish flags still fly over Kyrenia's
picture-postcard harbour, as well as two neighbouring Christian shrines,
Bellapais Abbey and St Hillarion Castle.
Those Greeks who fled south from Kyrenia are not among the 120,000 refugees who would be offered the option of returning home under the compromise drafted by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. In his Nicosia exile, the bishop is their spokesman.
The Orthodox hierarchy has lost much of its political influence since the
late Archbishop Makarios headed both the church and the state. Its
authority has been eroded by scandals and by a drift away from religion
among the middle class.
But Bishop Pavlos of Kyrenia's hellfire sermon reflects the rancorous
debate among the 640,000-strong Greek majority in advance of Saturday's separate communal referendums. Rival activists are branding each other "liars and traitors". Television talk shows degenerate into slanging matches. Viewers protest that they switch off more confused than ever about the convoluted, book-length Annan plan.
The Cyprus Mail suggested last week that supporters were reluctant to
display yes car stickers for fear of having their windscreens smashed by no campaigners. "What we have," the English-language daily complained, "is not a reasoned debate, but an emotional tirade against the plan, which is painted as a sell-out to the Turks under the pressure of foreign powers and the influence of a fifth column of Greek Cypriots."
By Eric Silver in Nicosia.
BARELY A week before Greek and Turkish Cypriots vote for or against
reunification of this divided island, a leading Orthodox bishop has
threatened Greek voters with damnation if they support the United Nations
plan.
In a sermon, the Bishop of Kyrenia cited St Paul, who said the unjust would not inherit the kingdom of heaven. "Consequently," he warned, "those who say yes will be party to an injustice. They will lose their homeland and the kingdom of heaven."
The Turkish army occupied the outspoken cleric's north-coast diocese in
1974 and repopulated it with Turkish Cypriot refugees and mainland
settlers. Red star and crescent Turkish flags still fly over Kyrenia's
picture-postcard harbour, as well as two neighbouring Christian shrines,
Bellapais Abbey and St Hillarion Castle.
Those Greeks who fled south from Kyrenia are not among the 120,000 refugees who would be offered the option of returning home under the compromise drafted by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. In his Nicosia exile, the bishop is their spokesman.
The Orthodox hierarchy has lost much of its political influence since the
late Archbishop Makarios headed both the church and the state. Its
authority has been eroded by scandals and by a drift away from religion
among the middle class.
But Bishop Pavlos of Kyrenia's hellfire sermon reflects the rancorous
debate among the 640,000-strong Greek majority in advance of Saturday's separate communal referendums. Rival activists are branding each other "liars and traitors". Television talk shows degenerate into slanging matches. Viewers protest that they switch off more confused than ever about the convoluted, book-length Annan plan.
The Cyprus Mail suggested last week that supporters were reluctant to
display yes car stickers for fear of having their windscreens smashed by no campaigners. "What we have," the English-language daily complained, "is not a reasoned debate, but an emotional tirade against the plan, which is painted as a sell-out to the Turks under the pressure of foreign powers and the influence of a fifth column of Greek Cypriots."
- webmagus
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- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:04 pm
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