Yenicag newspaper under police investigation allegedly for the crime of insulting the military
The Turkish Cypriot police started an investigation against Yenicag Newspaper on the 21st of March 2003, a weekly published in the northern part of Cyprus.
The pretext of police for the investigation is a news item published on the 18th of May 2001. The Investigation claims that Yenicag Newspaper has committed the crime of causing the people of turning away and getting distant from military and the military service, as well as insulting the Turkish Cypriot Armed Forces. Murat Kanatli, Chief Editor of Yenicag and the ex secretary general of Patriotic Unity Movement (YBH) came under police investigation for allegedly committing these crimes.
Yenicag Newspaper is the weekly newspaper of YBH. The alleged crimes come under the Military Crimes and Punishments Law in force in the northern part of Cyprus.
THE NEWS
The news published on the 18th of May 2001 was a statement by the YBH Youth Executive Council. YBH Youth had criticised the regime of taking secondary school children to military camps on the 16th of May 2001 and said that the regime was trying to create a more obedient generation by brainwashing them and by crushing them psychologically in front of military power.
THE STATEMENT
In the statement YBH Youth had said that at a period when international pressure was mounting for the solution of the Cyprus problem, the regime was trying to take youth under pressure and was forcing the youth to be more obedient to the system by brainwashing operations. YBH Youth calls on the reactinary military and chauvinist system in education to be changed immediately and states that conditions for a contemporary, participatory and scientific education is a must for the contemporary, pluralistic life. YBH Youth finds the intervention of the military to the civil life unacceptable and calls on all progressive, patriotic youth to struggle against these interventions.