Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

DISY hits out against police promotions
By John Leonidou

DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou told a news conference that among police officers promoted for their resistance to the 1974 coup, were 13 who had already been promoted for their role in the resistance.

Nicolaou urged the government to evaluate the authenticity of officers who fought against the coup.

Meanwhile, the government has withdrawn the promotion of 42 of the police officers, saying “a mistake has been made and it will be sorted out.”

Nicolaou went on to say how DISY had warned everyone about the issue, only to receive a battering from government deputies.

“It seems that for purely political reasons, they declared pupils, civilians and soldiers as resistance fighters thus insulting the real resistance fighters. From the evidence we have, it seems that some of these officers were in fact out of the country at the time of the coup.”

Nicolaou also noted that 13 of the officers had been given honorary promotions for their role in 1977 or 1978, explaining that eight were sergeants promoted to the rank of police lieutenant and five were police lieutenants promoted to the rank of superior police lieutenant. He questioned how the government could honour those 13 officers for a second time and not honour police officers taken captive during the 1974 Turkish invasion or those who fought against the Turks during the invasion.

He said another problem in the police was the fact that the force had too many high-ranking officials, which sometimes resulted in police sergeants having to do guard duty at gates.

Meanwhile Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides defended the climbdown saying that the government had simply made a mistake, which would be rectified.

Chrysostomides said the accusations about a top-heavy force were “untrue” and that “all of the promotions do not have any repercussions within the police force.”

“It seems that DISY’s problem is the fact that the current government has decided to acknowledge the services of the fighters against the resistance. The fact that 30 years have passed without anybody recognising the resistance fighters from the police is wrong.”



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2005

[brother]

How many medals and promotions do you guys really have to give?