16 Students to Be Arrested For 3 Days in Cyprus

Tensions between Kurdish students and ultranationalist Turkish students in Near East University left with the arrest order of 16 students for 3 days. The police is looking for 164 suspects.

According to an article by Ayşe Güler in Yeni Düzen, a local newspaper of North Cyprus, Nicosia District Court issued an arrest warrant for 16 people.

The charges included “illegal gathering”, “planned property damage”, “riot” and “serious battery”.

The police took security precautions in Near East University. Barbaros Savaşçı, Nicosia Chief of Police, visited the university and talked to a group of students waiting in front of the library.

“There is ELAM (An ultranationalist Greek organization) in the south [Cyprus] and there are extreme rightists in the north [Cyprus]. They are racist and terrorize people. This is not happening for the first time. Celal Hordan was the chief of these extreme rightist group in North Cyprus in the 1960s. It was Azmi Karamahmutoğlu in the 1990s. This country is sick and tired of racism. We don’t have to bear racist and extreme rightist people. Go away.  Ülkü Ocakları [known as Grey Wolves in English] must be closed,” stated Deputy Doğuş Derya from the ruling Republican Turkish Party (CTP). (MA/EKN/BD/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.