The election race in northern Cyprus has monopolised the interest of most mainstream media in southern Cyprus. As a result the elections have overshadowed the equally significant struggle that Turkish Cypriot lecturers and students of the Teachers Academy are waging for the last 3 weeks against the decision of Eroglu’s administration to privatise the Academy. The resistance against this attack equals also to the fight in defence of the right of equal access to free public education. At the same time the closure of the Teachers Academy - that functions since 1937 within the framework of Turkish Cypriot cultural identity - constitutes also a political battle against the long term policy of cultural assimilation and incorporation of Cypriots of northern Cyprus by the Turkish state.

Under the pretext of elections Eroglu’s administration banned the school strikes supported by your trade unions, KTOS and KTOEOS. The police exercise of brutal force against the demonstrators, who occupied the ministry of Education and protesting against the ban of strikes, is a sign of weakness by the authorities who tremble in the prospect of social unrest. It is no accident that the police brutal attack turned against KTOS and KTOEOS, the most militant Turkish Cypriot trade unions of School and High School Teachers.
Like the Turkish Cypriot workers, the Greek Cypriot workers in the past few years have been under attack by the employers and the government. The global economic crisis made our local and international rulers to intensify these attacks. As result we witness mass redundancies, wage cuts and cuts in public spending, more privatizations and attacks in workers’ vested rights.
Your fight constitutes part of the greater workers movement in Europe. While international bosses debate their best line of a coordinated attack, in Greece, Turkey, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and the rest of Europe the workers are fighting back refusing to pay the implications of a crisis they didn’t cause.
We extend our solidarity to your heroic struggle against the ban of the right to strike, to your determination to resist the policy of Turkey and the administration in northern Cyprus while denouncing the brutal attack of the authorities against the KTOS trade unionists who occupied the ministerial building. Your fight is an inspiration and sets an example for the Greek Cypriot workers.