Mr. Varheli was responding to a question sent jointly on 25 February 2022 by MEPs Dimitris Papadakis, Costas Mavridis, Lefteris Christoforou, Loukas Fourlas, Giorgos Georgiou and Niyazi Kizilyurek, regarding the President of the Turkish Cypriot Press Guild, Ali Kishmir, who is facing a multi-year prison sentence.
Varheli noted that freedom and pluralism of the media is a fundamental principle of the EU and the Union's toolbox to defend and promote them, both within its borders and in its external policy, is being strengthened.
He stressed that granting permission to foreigners to enter the territory of a country is a national competence. Therefore, the Commission is not in a position to examine actions of third countries, which are carried out in the context of security checks in individual cases, the reply said.
At the same time, the Commission, as Mr. The Commission is aware of the cases of Dr Okan Dağlı, journalist Ali Kișmir, as well as Dr Ahmet Cavit An and Ali Bizden, who have been banned from entering Turkey since July 2021.
The Committee is also aware that, in February 2022, Mr Kişmir was notified that he would be prosecuted in the Turkish Cypriot community for "insulting and defaming the security forces" because of an article he wrote in 2020.
The Commissioner, in his response, pointed out that under the assistance programme for the Turkish Cypriot community, the EU funded the grant project "Stronger, freer and more ethical journalism", which is being implemented by the Turkish Cypriot Journalists Association.
The main objective of this project is to strengthen the capacity of journalists and media organisations to promote and defend press freedom and fundamental human rights in the Turkish Cypriot community. The EU-funded Human Rights Platform project is currently monitoring freedom of expression as a fundamental right.
He also noted that media literacy and ethical journalism, as well as human rights in general, are priorities of an EU-funded call for proposals to support Cypriot civil society, with a particular focus on bi-communal civil society projects. This call for proposals was published in March 2022.
Source: CNA
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