Cyprus-Forum.com

[doesntmatter]

KISA reports two more racist attacks over weekend
By Marianna Pissa

RACISM and xenophobia are on the rise, Immigrant Support Group KISA warned yesterday, citing more incidents reported through the weekend.

According to Doros Polycarpou, leader of KISA, “On Friday at 10pm, a group of 15 youths stopped a man from Bangladesh riding his motorcycle with his girlfriend outside the Pallouriotissa church and demanded that the man gave them his motorcycle. When the man refused, the mob surrounded the couple and started beating them. The man then went to Omorfita Police Station to report the incident but was told by police to keep quiet as the attackers would deny the charges and blame it on him.

Police yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the Omorfita Police Station had no knowledge of the incident.

“Later in the night, at around 12.30am, a group of 50 youths, believed to be the same mob only bigger, went to the old town, namely Onassagorou Street, armed with bats and started beating random foreigners in the street. A Cypriot young man who tried to interfere was beaten and ended up in hospital with severe fractures to his arm. The police came to the scene and sealed the area surrounding an Indian internet shop in the street, while 50 metres down, the mob continued their attacks and made their way into a house where some Nepalese students were staying and broke the doors and windows while they were asleep.”

According to a police report, “the police are investigating a case of assault and causing bodily harm that occurred at 12.20am in Nicosia. According to the data under investigation, a group of about 10 youths was attacked by some 20 persons who were armed with bats and swords. From the scuffle, two 16-year-olds and a 13-year-old were injured and transferred to Nicosia General Hospital. The 16 year-old was kept for treatment and the other two received first aid treatment and were released. Nicosia CID is investigating the case”.

Police yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that they were investigating the case and six Cypriots would be charged with assault and the foreigners involved would be questioned. The investigation is ongoing.

“The police did not find anyone and made no arrests. If the police continue to be unresponsive and apathetic I don’t know what more is to be expected,” Polycarpou said.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.ph ... 0&cat_id=1

[doesntmatter]

Where are the police to punish the guilty?

THE SHAMEFUL racist assault on 15-year-old Margarita Duku at the end of a school volleyball match should sadly come as no surprise to anyone in Cyprus.

The teenager, a Cypriot who was born in Sudan, had tried to come to the aid of a team-mate hit by a girl from the opposing side at the end of the match, when she was set upon by a mob of up to 40 youths – boys and girls – who kicked her, punched her, pulled her hair and screamed racist abuse. The lynching only stopped when police arrived, but all they did was take her to a safe room, then – instead of taking her straight to the nearby general hospital – took her all the way back to her school in Akaki, where they called her father to pick her up. No one was arrested in connection with the incident.

While this is one of the first such explicitly racist assaults in Cyprus, racist attitudes are endemic. Foreign workers are exploited to the bone, submitted to a contemptuous disparagement at best. Allegations of abuse against foreign detainees by police and immigration officers are legion, while the way the authorities refer to foreigners is an incitement to racism. Police systematically spell out the fact whenever a ‘foreigner’ is a suspect in a crime, giving the impression that the rise in crime is due to the rise in foreigners, and they refer to all asylum seekers as illegal immigrants, whereas the right to seek asylum is enshrined in Cypriot and European law. And if Cypriots start losing their jobs as a result of the economic downturn, there is no doubt that we will start hearing about foreigners taking our jobs.

At the same time, youth delinquency is fast spiralling out of control, with sports stadiums the venues for sickening acts of violence committed with an impunity inconceivable were they to take place anywhere else. Similar assaults take place almost every weekend, and it is very likely that Margarita would have been attacked irrespective of the colour of her skin, though the accompanying racist abuse gives the assault a sickening dimension. For years such violence has been treated with the most unbelievable complacency, with police failing to protect people or property and reasons always found to excuse the thugs.

Police have finally started taking measures at football stadiums. But it is too late: the violence has become endemic, marked by a tribal chauvinism that feeds vicious hatred of the other, whether from another team, town, political party or in this case colour.

This has to stop. Where are the politicians to issue condemnations, where are the police to punish the guilty and make an example out of them? Is our society really comfortable with the way it is heading? Cyprus used to be a place of welcome, where people felt safe and comfortable. It has become xenophobic, resentful and violent. If we don’t turn the tide, we will soon be staring at the abyss.



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.ph ... 0&cat_id=1

Racism in South Greek Cyprus is "not institutionalised", yeah right!

[Tim Drayton]

Instead of just engaging in this knee-jerk exercise of copying and pasting anything bad you can find about the southern part of Cyprus, if you want to find a serious assessment of racism in Cyprus, why not study the 2007 Cyprus report by the European Network Against Racism. Interestingly, this report examines the situation in both parts of the island. While the report identifies serious shortcomings in the government-controlled part of the island, and incidents such as those highlighted in the above reports cannot be taken lightly, you will find that the north of Cyprus is slammed in this report for its racism.

http://cms.horus.be/files/99935/MediaAr ... 202007.pdf

[miltiades]

Ignore him mate he is a foreigner poking his nose into Cyprus's affairs !!

[Get Real!]

Run out of things to say Ricco? No worries, your thread continues here:

“Soyer accuses teachers' union of racism”

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/cyprus18247.html

[Mr. T]

Instead of just engaging in this knee-jerk exercise of copying and pasting anything bad you can find about the southern part of Cyprus, if you want to find a serious assessment of racism in Cyprus, why not study the 2007 Cyprus report by the European Network Against Racism. Interestingly, this report examines the situation in both parts of the island. While the report identifies serious shortcomings in the government-controlled part of the island, and incidents such as those highlighted in the above reports cannot be taken lightly, you will find that the north of Cyprus is slammed in this report for its racism.

http://cms.horus.be/files/99935/MediaAr ... 202007.pdf

You must have attached the wrong report as it makes the situation in the north pale into insignificance compared to the south.

Page 35 in particular as concerns the Movement for the Salvation of Cyprus is certainly of no surprise.

It is an interesting report and whilst one can sympathise with the lack of progress in some areas in the north due to the isolation of the ethnic citizens the south has no such excuse and it is arguable whether the south should be in the EU.

[doesntmatter]

Ignore him mate he is a foreigner poking his nose into Cyprus's affairs !!

I am as much a foreigner as Papadopoulos who loved the Greek flag so much that he had to be buried cowered in it.

How old did you say you were granddad?

[miltiades]

Ignore him mate he is a foreigner poking his nose into Cyprus's affairs !!

I am as much a foreigner as Papadopoulos who loved the Greek flag so much that he had to be buried cowered in it.

How old did you say you were granddad?

Old enough to recognise a foreigner when I see one !
And yes , anyone displaying foreign flags is a foreigner by definition , you are sending the message that you are a Turk , a visitor in Cyprus , one who has no respect for the island of INDEPENDENT ( APART FROM THE TURKISH OCCUPIED NORTH ) CYPRUS. Greece ain't our country mate and neither is Anatolia , they are both foreign nations , two nations that have brought nothing but blood and suffering , and bloody flags as well , to our island .
LONG LIVE CYPRUS THE HOME OF THE INDIGENOUS CYPRIOTS !!

[Get Real!]

...it is arguable whether the south should be in the EU.

Why don't you start a dedicated thread and see how far you can "argue" with GR over that... I promise you a swift death because it’s Christmas!

[Kikapu]

...it is arguable whether the south should be in the EU.

Why don't you start a dedicated thread and see how far you can "argue" with GR over that... I promise you a swift death because it’s Christmas!

I have just flipped my "hour glass" over.!