Methodology

At V1, Cyprus Rights publishes only the documentary tier: institutional conduct evidenced by public documents. No record naming a private individual, no testimony-based finding, and no criminal allegation is published until a named external reviewer function exists.

Every record carries exactly one status, drawn from a fixed vocabulary of ten values. Status is not a severity scale and not a confidence score — each value has its own evidentiary threshold, stated below.

ADJUDICATED

A court or treaty body with jurisdiction has determined this matter. Cyprus Rights holds, or permanently cites, that determination.

CORROBORATED

This is the highest status Cyprus Rights may assign on its own authority. It meets the independent-source thresholds set out in Cyprus Rights' editorial doctrine.

PROVISIONAL

This record meets its evidentiary threshold on the evidence presently available, but a load-bearing element is known to be subject to change.

REPORTED

Credible sources report this, but corroboration is not yet sufficient for publication as a finding. Cyprus Rights does not use the word “documented” for material at this status.

CONTESTED

Credible sources materially disagree on the facts. This record presents all positions with their sources; Cyprus Rights does not adjudicate between them.

DISPUTED

This record was published, then formally disputed by a named party through the right-of-reply process. The original record is preserved unchanged, with the dispute attached.

CLOSED_WITHOUT_CONCLUSION

Cyprus Rights investigated this matter and could not reach any other status. The investigation, not the underlying event, is what closed.

DISCONFIRMED

Cyprus Rights investigated this matter and established that it did not occur as reported.

UNVERIFIED

Held internally, not established. This status is never published.

RETRACTED

This record was published, then found not to meet its stated status. It remains at its original address, marked as retracted.

The established position in the incident-recording field is that a non-judicial recorder cannot verify — it can only corroborate. “Verified” implies a determination by a body with the authority and the investigative powers to make one, and Cyprus Rights has neither. ADJUDICATED means a court or treaty body with jurisdiction decided the matter; CORROBORATED means Cyprus Rights assembled sufficient independent evidence on its own authority, and is Cyprus Rights' ceiling. The word “verified” does not appear in Cyprus Rights' own voice about Cyprus Rights' own records, in any language edition.

Cyprus Rights classifies every source into one of four tiers. Tier A sources are records created by the body with authority over the matter, or an adjudicating body — court judgments, official gazettes, legislation, verbatim parliamentary records. Tier B sources are independent, accountable, named reporting — international-organisation and established NGO reports, named journalism with a corrections practice, peer-reviewed research. Tier C is first-person testimony from victims or witnesses. Tier D is material found in public digital circulation, such as social media or user-generated content, which never satisfies a corroboration threshold alone.

Two sources are independent only if they have different owners and different registrable domains, neither derives from the other or republishes a common wire or press release, neither aggregates the other, and they are not both aligned to the same party to the dispute for a claim adverse to the other party. That last condition does the real work: two Turkish Cypriot outlets reporting a Republic of Cyprus failing are not two independent sources, any more than two Greek Cypriot outlets reporting a failing in the north are. A press release reproduced by six outlets is one source.