greek cypriot police and authorities

Shut the *** up already before I send you break-dancing around this
room showing as much finesse as an elliptic high on homemade
amphetamine having a spasmodic seizure after stepping into an
electrified puddle on a rainy day in November, Herman Munster.


ntl wrote:
> Asylum seekers choosing death
>
> Sunday Mail 24 July2005
> By Stefanos Evripidou
>
> DRIVEN TO the edge of despair, three asylum seekers have attempted to commit suicide in the space of a month. All three used horrific means to try and end their lives when the months of anxiety and uncertainty became too much to bear.
>
> Non-government organisations have long complained that asylum seekers face systematic abuse and a wall of institutionalised racism in Cyprus. This fear was only heightened when the three attempted suicide.
>
> Head of KISA (Action for Equality, Support and Anti-racism) Doros Polycarpou said all three attempted suicides occurred between the end of May and June.
> KISA has consistently warned the powers that be that migrants in Cyprus continuously face a host of obstacles preventing them from enjoying their legally protected rights.
>
> In the first case, an Iranian man whose personal circumstances cannot be printed had his application for asylum rejected.
>
> According to Polycarpou, the man had very strong grounds to seek asylum and protection from his home country. "His case really was qualified for asylum. He got so dejected when it wasn't that he doused himself with petrol outside the Asylum Service. Luckily, a policeman stopped him before he lit the match."
>
> Another man cut his veins in front of a policeman after spending months in the holding cells of Block 10.
>
> "He was treated and returned to Block 10 where he remains. In his case, he spent months inside without any clue as to what his future was. The authorities are holding him on a deportation order. But the purpose of such an order is for it to be executed immediately.
>
> "You cannot hold a man in prison for months or years on the basis of a deportation order. The Ombudswoman has said it is illegal to do this," said Polycarpou.
>
> "You cannot keep someone who has applied for asylum in jail for a year until you get a chance to deport them. They have no clue of their future, they are just waiting and waiting."
>
> Asked why delays existed, he said: "Some countries won't accept them back.. For example, the Iranians say whoever doesn't want to return to Iran will not be accepted back."
>
> The third case is the most tragic. "An Iranian asylum seeker was driving a friend who wanted to apply for asylum in Limassol. He was arrested for speeding, and charged with assisting someone to apply for asylum in bad faith," said Polycarpou.
>
> "Police did not charge the friend, but the man went to jail for two months for helping his friend. Under the ancient laws we have on Aliens, a legal migrant who is charged with an offence can be considered an undesirable migrant, and be deported immediately. So that is what they wanted to do with him."
>
> The authorities ignored the spirit of the law, argued Polycarpou. The law on undesirable migrants was meant to apply to serious and dangerous criminals, not someone who was driving a friend.
>
> However, since he was an asylum seeker, the authorities had to wait until his application could be examined before they could deport him. They put him in a police holding cell and told him he would stay there until the Asylum Service reached its decision.
>
> "It is a crime that his friend was let free and he had to go through all this. They moved him to Larnaca police station where they tried to persuade him to withdraw his asylum application.
>
> "They put the paper in front of him and told him to sign or wait behind bars for two years until a decision was reached. He blew his lid, reacted and police hit him. They say he became violent so they used reasonable force to contain him."
>
> The whole affair started with the asylum seeker giving a friend a lift to the police station, but soon turned into a nightmare.
>
> "He ended up at Athalassa Psychiatric Unit. After finishing therapy, the government doctor advised police not to send him back to the holding cell. But the police decided otherwise.
>
> "On the day they went to pick him up from Athalassa, he put his arm between two bars and jerked it so violently that his arm was cut completely from his body."
>
> Doctors successfully re-attached the arm but he needs five operations to get any feeling back in his arm.
>
> The Asylum Service decided after the event to grant him a one-year permit on humanitarian grounds.
>
> "So what happens next year when his permit runs out?" asked Polycarpou. "These are just the cases we know of, it's a desperate situation."
>
>
>
> Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2005

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