The government have turned RIK into a government mouthpiece
Statement by AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 31st August 2020, Nicosia
Yesterday AKEL put a number of questions to the Board of Directors of the state-owned Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (RIK) about the cutting of a program on the public television station, after interventions were made “from above”, a program which would have included political satire.
Astonishingly, while the Board of RIK, as well as the government ruling forces, are accused of censorship and silencing voices, none of them have responded. RIK did not even broadcast AKEL’s statement on the matter, obviously on the orders from above yet again!
It is evident that the government ruling forces, who have turned RIK into a government mouthpiece, are silently attempting to let the whole issue be forgotten. That’s precisely what they do when there is an issue that is not convenient for them and when they cannot stop the issue from made public. This is what they also tried to do with all the reports about the “golden passports” scheme, when the President of the Republic called the Emir of Qatar. Their authoritarianism has reached such a level that they can’t even tolerate satire.
RIK is funded by the Cypriot people not to broadcast the propaganda of the ruling DISY party and its government, nor to censor its own journalists, nor to silence the opposition. RIK’s mission is to broadcast information in an objective way, pluralism, freedom of expression and promote journalist’s creativity and to provide quality entertainment. If the Board of Directors of RIK insists on not realising that the Corporation is not a mouthpiece for the DISY Government, we will once again try to explain this to them during the exercise of parliamentary scrutiny.
