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Tue, 02 May 2006

May 1st/ Labor Day in north Cyprus
I feel like I am reading the Cypriot version of "The Onion" when I look at newspapers from Cyprus. Today, Kibris Newspaper caught my eye when reporting about the labor day celebrations in north Cyprus. It ran the news with a photo showing a youngster waving a USSR (sickle and hammer) flag and a large crowd behind him.  If I did not know better, I would have thought that north Cyprus has a very strong Stalinist presence and these rallies are attended by fringes of the left. Contrarily, these are fairly traditional rallies and since mid-80s have had fairly small participation. Mainly devoted followers of all political parties and organizations of the left attend them. The running title on the photo was even more interesting, it read "messages of peace and a call for a demilitarized Cyprus was sent to the whole world". Really? First "This homeland is ours" which was a slogan of New Cyprus Party and was censored by papers like Kibris newspaper became mainstream. New Cyprus Party has been calling for demilitarization of the island and Nicosia in particular and Kibris newspaper was largely ignoring it. Now they make it sound like the whole Turkish Cypriot community rallied behind the slogan. It is absurd. (The same issue ran an article reporting satements by the association of brothel owners in north Cyprus -- ofcourse, they call themselves the Association of Houses of Entertainment -- who tried really hard to argue that women were not exploited there. Ohwell.)

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