Press Workers’ Trade Union Basin-Sen has condemned the arbitrary exclusion of Turkish Cypriot journalists working at PIK (a satellite TV channel belonging to Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation CyBc), ‘Kibris Postasi’ reports.
Basin-Sen has issued the following press release:
“Our Union strongly condemns the alienation and exclusion of Turkish Cypriot journalists working at Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (PIK). This attitude by the PIK authorities has been going on for a long time but has reached an unbearable level.
Recently PIK administration axed two Turkish Cypriot journalists. One of these journalists had worked at PIK for 25 years and the other one had worked there for the last 9 years. They also started an investigation in order to axe one more Turkish Cypriot journalist.
Our two colleagues from PIK were dismissed against the law that regulates the PIK. This is the most important indicator that politics played a role in this decision.
These dismissals which were done without any legal process, are unacceptable.
We also see the investigations against our Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot colleagues in order to fire them as a ‘cleansing’ of the democratic factors from PIK.
In addition to this our colleagues who were axed from PIK and the ones that are being investigated are members of PEO and SDIKEK. This fact shows that the operation against our colleagues is political. We support the legal process started by PEO and SDIKEK and the initiations started before the Greek Cypriot Labour Ministry.
On the other hand, we want to underline our opinion of the unfortunate passivity of “Cyprus Journalist Union” regarding this issue, and to express that we think their negligence is unacceptable.
Our expectation of the Greek Cypriot administration which is an EU member on behalf of Cyprus Republic to stop this illegal political operation. We request the reinstatement of our two colleagues who were fired.
As the Press Workers’ Trade Union we declare that we will follow this process closely and will voice our objections before the Greek Cypriot Administration via the international federations that we are part of. We invite everyone to react against this unjust operation.”
