Turkish Cypriot journalist Vatan Mehmet was on Thursday arrested after having allegedly “illegally recorded” a conversation with the north’s public broadcaster BRT’s director Meryem Cavusoglu Ozkurt.
News website Haber Kibris reported that Mehmet appeared in court in northern Nicosia on Monday morning and was released on bail.
Sources told the Cyprus Mail that it was Ozkurt who had reported Mehmet to the police after discovering that he had recorded her without her permission.
Mehmet’s arrest is the latest in an ongoing dispute between the pair, with Mehmet having long alleged that Ozkurt has links to the Gulen movement, an Islamist movement which attempted a coup d’état in Turkey in 2016.
He pointed out in a social media post back in November that Ozkurt had been a founder of television station Samanyolu in 2002, with Samanyolu having had its licence cancelled in July 2016 due to its links to the Gulen movement.

“One of the founders of Samanyolu in Turkey, who owes her entire career to the Gulen movement, this is Meryem Cavusoglu Ozkurt, director of the public broadcaster BRT in Cyprus. She must have wanted the crisis in the TRNC parliament to be broadcast only from the government’s side, because she did not air the views of any opposition MPs,” he said.
In this, he was referring to BRT’s coverage of the political crisis which enveloped the north in November, wherein the ruling coalition and the north spent weeks in disagreement over whether ruling coalition party UBP ‘MP’ Ziya Ozturkler had been elected as ‘parliament speaker’.
During that saga, ‘deputy parliament speaker’ Fazilet Ozdenefe attempted to open ‘parliament’, believing that as no ‘speaker’ had been elected, it was her right.
At that point, the live television feed which broadcasts ‘parliament’s’ goings on at all times on BRT was cut.
Ozdenefe was made aware of this, and informed the chamber, saying, “according to the information I have received, [‘parliament’s’ television channel] has cut the broadcast. If that is the case, I must remind you all that they must continue broadcasting, as is required by law.”
Under normal circumstances, goings on in the north’s ‘parliament’ are broadcast on television channel BRT2, but on that day, BRT2 was broadcasting a pre-recorded choir recital.
Mehmet then followed his earlier tweet with a second, writing, “[Ozkurt] called me and threatened me to take my tweet down, lest I be sued.
“I recorded our phone conversation. I will not take this tweet down.”
Mehmet works for news website Kibris Postasi, who told the Cyprus Mail he would make a statement on the matter “in the coming hours”.
In that statement, he confirmed that he had handed over his mobile phone to the Turkish Cypriot police four days after sending the second tweet in November.
Ozkurt herself has found herself on the wrong side of the law in the past, having served two months in prison for breaking the north’s electoral law in 2020 when she chose to air a speech made by then Turkish Cypriot leader candidate Ersin Tatar when the water pipeline connecting the north was fixed. Tatar won the subsequent election.
Mehmet referenced this in his statement, saying, “despite the fact that there are people like Meryem Cavusoglu Ozkurt, who was sentenced and jailed for abusing public office in this profession, some have used their power as a stick with which to beat others. This is the irony of our profession.”
He added that while on bail, he will continue to work for Kibris Postasi.
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