Cartoon controversy

An incredible controversy about Cyprus is spreading between Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot state. The cartoon by local cartoonist Utku Karsu depicts a "landing ship" anchored at a Cypriot shore, bringing the island a group of criminals. The cartoon was first published in the "Kıbrıs" (Cyprus) newspaper of failed business tycoon Asil Nadir. Why has it become a source of controversy after so many months over its publication? That's a mystery.

Nationalists, associations, and a political party claiming to represent Anatolian Turks who have settled in Cyprus since the 1974 Turkish intervention have been staging demonstrations, accusing the cartoonist and the Kıbrıs newspaper of disseminating hatred and thus spreading "fascist, racist, and anti-Turkish feelings" among the local Turkish Cypriot people.

Indeed, the cartoon was badly drawn, and personally, I consider the depiction of mainland Turkish settlers in Cyprus as criminals as a deplorable and disgusting approach even though statistics vividly demonstrate the overwhelming majority of inhabitants of the Turkish Cypriot prison facilities have a mainland background. Yet, it is totally unacceptable to disseminate a rejectionist, racist mentality of looking down on them. But, cartoonists, like anyone else, should be entitled to express their opinion in any way they consider appropriate. How could the freedom of expression be denied from an artist, writer, journalist, academic, or plain citizen?

Indeed, in its Dec. 7, 1976 decision in the Handyside v. United Kingdom case, the European Court of Human Rights produced an exemplary definition of what freedom of expression must entail:

"Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of such a society, one of the basic...