Turkish Cypriots protest in Nicosia for "freedom and peace"

With the slogan of "Peace for our future" and #BarışÇünkü (peace, because), hundreds of Turkish Cypriots youth participated on Saturday afternoon in a protest march organized through a Facebook organizing committee in Nicosia.

Throughout the peace march, protestors danced Cypriot dances and songs.

The event was published on the front page of Turkish-Cypriot newspaper Avrupa.

They ran the headline "Exactly the time" for peace without discrimination in language, religion or gender - references that were included in the announcement of the organizing committee.

And Yeni Düzen on its front page mentioned "Peace for our future", which was the main slogan.

Both newspapers publish photos from the event.

Yeni Düzen described the protestors as "Peace walkers".

The event was supported and participated by the organized youth of the Republican Turkish parties, the Left Movement, the Union of Communist Revolutionaries and others.

Arriving near the Turkish Cypriot checkpoint at the roadblock on Ledra Street, where the event ended, the organizing committee read that they were there "to bring out of the abyss a forgotten language, the language of respect, love, peace, of the fraternity".

"Aren't we fed up with enough resentment, hatred, battle, divisions?", they questioned.

"As children of a generation that has emerged from the scars and wounds left by the war, we want to leave the next generation with a bright and hopeful future where these fears will not exist, without borders and wires," the committee continued to read.

"A country with peace means a country that will not have hatred and divisions, that will give the right position on human rights, will give economic opportunities, will be accepted by the international community and will offer young people a sustainable future," the protestors said.

"That is why our goal is to understand, explain, live and perpetuate peace in the best possible way," the statement continued to read.

"Peace is what our beautiful island has been longing for for years, peace that will bring all the youth from Karpasia and Paphos, hand in hand, because peace is what makes us live. The youth of this island is not 'apolitical', as there is a claim, it has knowledge, conscience, it feels and most importantly "it loves this homeland!", the committee read.

"We said 'Peace because' this country deserves the most beautiful. "Our similarities are more than our differences", "No one but us can bring us peace", "Peace for our future", we said and now we say: "Peace, because the time has come!" it concluded.

Manolis Kalatzis is a correspondent for Proto Thema.