Famagusta anti-occupation event to take place tonight

President Nikos Christodoulides will be the main speaker at the Famagusta municipality’s anti-occupation event being held on Saturday, to commemorate the fallen in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

The event will begin at 7.30 pm at the cultural centres of Famagusta, located in Dherynia.

Ahead of the event, Famagusta Bishop Vasilios will conduct a memorial service for all the fallen during the Turkish invasion, whose second leg hit the area on August 14, 1974.

This year’s event is entitled “Kavafis Law” and according to the programme, Maria Theodorou will sing with the Famagusta choir. Later the mayor of Dherynia, Andros Karayiannis, will speak, followed by the Mayor of Famagusta Simos Ioannou.

A resolution will also be read out at the event by the head of the cultural committee Nikos Karoullas.

More music will follow the speeches by Maria Theodorou and conductor Nikos Vichas.

Meanwhile, at 8pm another anti-occupation event, and memorial motorcycle ride will take place at the Dherynia crossing point for Tassos Isaak, who was beaten to death by Turkish nationalists in the late 90s, and his cousin Solomos Solomou, who was shot a few days later at a memorial service for his cousin and while attempting to remove the flag of the ‘TRNC’ from the area Isaak was killed.

Every year since then, a motorcade has traversed Cyprus to bring attention to the murder of the two and demand justice.

Police said that the Dherynia crossing point will be closed from 7pm until 11pm, due to the two anti-occupation events.

The municipality had garnered harsh criticism earlier in the week, when it emerged that the Turkish Cypriot mayor of Famagusta, Suleyman Ulucay, had been invited attend the anti-occupation event.

Leading the rallying cry to not have him attend was the political party Edek, who had supported Christodoulides during the latest presidential elections.

The invitation of the “pseudo-mayor of occupied Famagusta” was “unacceptable from every point of view” said Edek in a statement accusing the real mayor Simos Ioannou of “downgrading the event from anti-occupation to bicommunal, sending the wrong messages to occupying Turkey, abroad and domestically.”

They ended up boycotting the event.

However, later Friday, Ulucay also reportedly decline to attend the event, with Ioannou telling Astra Radio that he was informed the Turkish Cypriot mayor would not attend so as to not cause problems internally to the Famagusta municipality or efforts to solve the Cyprus problem.