Veteran Turkish Cypriot journalist Sener Levent on Friday promised to “never surrender” after announcing that he had been summoned to present himself to the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office lest he be extradited to Turkey.
“They are calling on me to surrender, right? I will not surrender. I will not surrender, as I wrote in the newspaper. I did not surrender in the past to fascism, and I will not surrender. If they want, let them arrest me. For me, this Ankara court decision is non-existent,” he told the Cyprus News Agency.
The summons is reportedly related to the publication of a cartoon published in Levent’s newspaper, then called Afrika, on December 21, 2017, showing a Greek statue urinating on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As a result of the cartoon, he had been sentenced in absentia to a year in prison in Ankara for “insulting” Erdogan, before later being acquitted of related charges at a court in northern Nicosia.
Now, Levent says, he is being summoned to Turkey to serve his sentence.
“They tried me in absentia in Ankara and they gave me a year in prison. Then, they started another trial for another article of mine and they gave me another year in prison from there. Then, they started a third trial for another article, and they gave me six months in prison from there,” he said.
With this in mind, he said he considers the rulings to be null and void.
“In Turkey, justice has been nullified. It has been completely nullified. It has been left between the two lips of Tayyip Erdogan,” he said.
He added, “if I, as a Cypriot, accepted this decision, would it not be an injustice to all my other friends, to all the other people who are unjustly imprisoned there?”, before making reference to the sentences handed down to left-wing Kurdish politicians Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag and Turkish-French businessman Osman Kavala.
“I don’t believe that Selahattin Demirtas, Osman Kavala, or Figen Yuksekdag are being justly imprisoned. This is all terrorism, these are the results of the regime of one person,” he said.
He added that in his own case, “a trial in absentia is invalid” and said it “cannot be accepted” according to the north’s own laws, as “it is a trial where there was not even a defence”.
He also criticised the extradition agreement which exists between the north and Turkey, saying that it only works “unilaterally”.
“The regime here extradites to Turkey anyone it is asked to. However, Turkey does not extradite here the people wanted in Cyprus. Such an extradition has never happened to date, from Turkey to Cyprus,” he said.
Asked whether he is considering moving to the Republic to avoid arrest, he said, “no, definitely not”.
“I do not intend to go there or anywhere else to seek asylum. I will remain here, in my country, in my home,” he said.
He then added that “what is happening clearly and blatantly proves that Turkey is an occupying power”.
“This is a new example. We, here, have been under the occupation and military administration of Turkey since 1974. This country is a colony of Turkey, its protectorate,” he said.
In the early hours of Friday morning, parliament had unanimously passed a resolution condemning what was described as the “illegal persecution” of Levent.
The resolution, submitted by Diko MP Pavlos Mylonas, read that parliament is “watching with particular concern the attempt by the Turkish state to silence the Turkish Cypriot journalist and publisher Sener Levent”.
It added that it is “particularly concerned about the actions of the pseudo-state, which, as Ankara’s agent, issued an arrest warrant against him”.
In addition, it expressed “strong disappointment at the political persecutions carried out by the Turkish state in recent years” which are now being “methodically transferred to the occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus”.
It stressed that Levent is a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus, and as such said it “unequivocally condemns this attempt by the occupation regime to intimidate a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus”.
It then expressed “solidarity with those forces of Turkish Cypriots who are fighting to ensure free will, the reunification of our homeland, and the autonomous existence of the Turkish Cypriot community against Turkey’s aspirations for assimilation”.
It concluded by calling “on the Cypriot state, Cypriot society, and the institutions of the European Union and other European organisations to react and protect [Levent] and every voice of resistance against Turkish imposition”.
Meanwhile, Tufan Erhurman, the opposition’s candidate at this October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election, said that allowing Levent to be extradited to Turkey is “not legally possible”.
“I find it worth reiterating a principle which is not legally debatable: it is not possible for a TRNC citizen to be extradited to the Republic of Turkey or any other country for a crime … This principle, which applies in many other countries in the world, also applies to Sener Levent. It is clear and undisputed not only in principle but also in legislation and practice,” he said.
Earlier, former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci had said the reported efforts to extradite Levent constituted part of efforts to “turn [the north] into a province” of Turkey.
“No matter how far removed you are from current politics, there are some events where you simply cannot remain silent. The attempted imprisonment of Sener Levent in Turkey is such a case, and it epitomises the point to which we have been brought,” he began.
“I am sure there are many who say that ‘this is unacceptable’, and our legal framework prevents it anyway, but let’s not forget that this is a regime which even violates its own constitution, and its perspective on us is this: just as anyone who speaks out against the regime anywhere in Turkey or writes even a few lines of criticism is imprisoned, the same will happen in the province of Cyprus.”
He added that “this place is supposed to be a separate state with separate institutions, and even a two-state solution was being sought”, but that “this is all a lie”.
“As I have stated many times before, what is actually happening is a policy of turning us into a province.”
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