A/HRC/34/15 cultural heritage sites in both the southern and northern parts of Cyprus. The Committee recommended that Cyprus take all measures necessary and appropriate to restore the damaged cultural heritage sites and artefacts and preserve the remaining ones, including by strengthening the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage with sufficient resources. It also recommended that the State party take effective measures to ensure that people in Cyprus could freely visit cultural heritage sites in both the southern and northern parts of the island (E/C.12/CYP/CO/6, paras. 43-44). The Dhenia mosque inside the buffer zone suffered extensive damage as a result of an arson attack on 21 February 2016. Both leaders immediately condemned the attack in separate statements. The mosque had previously been vandalized, in January 2013, and had just been restored through the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage programme in December 2014 with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and funding from the European Union. No arrests were made (S/2016/598, para. 14). 44. UNDP, with strong support from the European Union, continued to work closely with the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage and the Technical Committee on Crossings. During the period under review, work on three cultural heritage sites in the walled city of Famagusta progressed, while other large projects, such as Agios Panteleimonas and Apostolos Andreas, were expected to be completed by the end of 2016. UNDP also facilitated guided tours to ongoing heritage conservation projects, while the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage raised awareness of ongoing works through presentations and media appearances. On 15 and 16 April, more than 200 people from both communities participated in an event to mark the International Day for Monuments and Sites (ibid., para. 29). In support of a political settlement, UNDP continued to facilitate the Cyprus dialogue forum, bringing together 94 organizations from both communities, including political parties, businesses and industries, trade unions, non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations to build consensus on essential socioeconomic issues related to a settlement (S/2016/11, para. 31). F. Freedom of opinion and expression 45. According to article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. 46. The Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights expressed deep concern to see place names significantly altered in the north, changing the symbolic, historic and cultural landscape, with many Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots both rejecting the use of the new names. At the same time, she expressed concern that the Law on the Procedure for the Standardization of Geographical Names of the Republic, which criminalizes the publication of, inter alia, material containing place names in the Republic that are different from those specified in official documents, appears to be incompatible with the right to freedom of expression and creates obstacles to those wishing to travel in the north and discuss cultural heritage-related issues.15 15 12 See “Preliminary conclusions and observations by the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights” (see footnote 2).

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