Regarding the renewed illegal persecution by Turkey and the occupation regime of journalist and publisher Sener Levent, a Cypriot citizen, who was honored with the European Parliament's European Citizen's Prize (2018), the European Commission responded to MEP Costas Mavridis (DIKO – S&D), noting the undermining of freedom of expression and media pluralism in the Turkish Cypriot community and the targeting of journalists and the media more broadly by Turkey.
Mr. Mavridis had intervened to the EU denouncing the illegal warrant for the imprisonment of Sener Levent in Turkey, following a decision by a Turkish court, an organ of the Erdogan regime. The Cypriot MEP asked the European Commission to intervene immediately, in order to prevent the execution of a politically motivated prison sentence in a third country against a European citizen within the territory of the EU and to take effective sanctions measures “given Turkey’s continued disregard for human rights and EU principles, both internally and through its subservient and illegal regime in occupied Cyprus”.
The Commission, in its reply, states, inter alia, that in Turkey the targeting of the media and journalists is contrary to its commitments to respect what has been established by the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. Continuing, the Commission underlines that it has repeatedly put to its Turkish counterparts at all levels that Turkey must urgently reverse the negative trend of recent years and make tangible progress in the defence of fundamental rights. Finally, the Commission informs the Cypriot MEP that, through the EU assistance programme for the Turkish Cypriot community, “the EU funds the Human Rights Platform, an association of seven Turkish Cypriot civil society organisations that monitor the human rights situation in the Turkish Cypriot community, including freedom of expression”.
Mr. Mavridis commented that the Commission, having noted the known facts, given that the regime in Turkey is a chronic violator of fundamental human rights, a matter which the Commission repeatedly raises with Turkish representatives, diligently avoids referring to taking measures.
MEP Press Office
