Turkish Cypriot journalists’ union, Basin-Sen, on Friday condemned articles written in Kibris Newspaper regarding heated scenes at the Teknecik power plant overnight.

Scenes became tense on Thursday night over alleged statements by the ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel that there had been “sabotage” causing the problems.

He then brought a team of workers from private Turkish power company, Aksa, to check the issues at Teknicik. This sparked outrage among electric company worker’s union El-Sen, who blocked the entrance to Teknecik, leading to an alleged altercation.

Kibris Newspaper wrote that El-Sen leader Ahmet Tugcu attacked Ustel, and was arrest on his orders, only to be quickly released.

In a statement on Friday, the journalists’ union said: “It is unacceptable behaviour for Kibris Newspaper to publish blatantly false news.”

Basin-Sen said the newspaper was spreading lies Tugcu punched the Ustel and was arrested on the latter’s orders and that issues at the power plant were caused by the north’s electricity ‘authority’s’, Kib-Tek’s, workers.

“Although the news published in digital media has been proved to be untrue successively throughout the night, the fact that they insist on publishing the relevant news in today’s headlines, where they have mastered in publishing false news, is proof of how manipulative they [Kibris Newspaper] act in this regard,” the union said.

They called on the owners and executives of the newspaper to apologise for the articles about the incident.