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By Simon Bahceli

THERE is something particularly disturbing about seeing a large, grown man cry.

Perhaps it is the contrast between the strength they outwardly possess and the weakness they now portray that makes the image less bearable. Perhaps it is because their sudden and unexpected expression of weakness reminds us that there is no protection sturdy enough - be it monetary wealth, physical strength, or brains – that can guard us from all that life might throw our way. Even honour, integrity and good intentions, we find, can let us down in the face of those thoroughly intent on our demise.

I recently met Muhammed (not his real name) in a house in north Nicosia at a time when he should have been celebrating his acquittal the week before from drugs charges that could have landed him a lengthy prison sentence. But rather than elation, he could only muster an unpleasant cocktail of emotions ranging from anger to shame, disgust and disbelief.

Before his arrest in August last year, Iranian national Muhammed was a merchant sea captain. In the physical prime of his life, he was a man who loved sport, the open sea, and most of all, people. To me, on the day I met him, he looked like a man who had been to hell and back.

“They turned me from a man into a mouse,” Muhammed tearfully said of the Turkish Cypriot police who “interrogated” him when he was arrested after leaving a friend’s house in Famagusta one day in August last year. Unbeknown to him, the friend (whom he had only recently met) was a habitual opium user, who had for some time been under police surveillance. Unfortunately for Muhammed, his visit coincided with the police’s plan to arrest and imprison his friend.

If Muhammed’s account of mistreatment, and indeed torture, at the hands of Turkish Cypriot police is to be believed, there is clearly a serious problem in the way suspects are handled in the north. And according to human rights lawyer Oncel Polili, stories such as Muhammed’s are by no means few and far between.

“Ninety per cent of suspects arrested by our police confess to the crimes they are accused of,” says Polili, who believes this higher-than-average figure stems not from effective policing but from the use of torture to extract confessions.

The methods Muhammed says the police used in trying to force him to confess to supplying his friend with opium are harrowing. After being handcuffed in the street and frog-marched back to his friend’s house, he was beaten and verbally abused.

“I was pushed, kicked and punched as they marched me up the stairs to my friend’s apartment. All the while they made disgusting remarks about my mother and my sister,” Muhammed said, pacing around nervously as he did so.

“This fat policeman kept asking me where I’d hidden the stuff, and when I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, he whacked me across the side of the head so hard that my ear drum burst. When I begged him to stop, he simply carried on, and when I managed to protect my head, he punched me in the stomach”.

After being kicked in the legs, Muhammed fell to the floor, only to be dragged up again for more beating and verbal abuse. This went on until a piece of opium “about the size of a cigarette packet”, was found in the apartment.

“When I saw the drugs, I asked to be brought a lawyer. But no sooner had the word lawyer left my lips, the beating began again,” Muhammed said.

The next day, Muhammed, a university-educated and widely travelled man, was taken to court where he denied knowing anything about the drugs. He had still not yet been allowed access to a lawyer.

“I also told the judge I had been beaten and that I wanted a doctor to look at my ear, which was in severe pain. The judge ordered that I be taken for a check up.

“I was never taken,” he said.

Still convinced that he had smuggled the drugs to his friend, and that more drugs were yet to be found, the police decided it was time for Muhammed to confess to his crime. He was taken to the Narcotics Department at Yenisehir police station in north Nicosia where, after being “asked nicely” to confess – which he refused to do – other policemen were called in to use more forceful methods.

The first of these was to bring in “a short policeman” who, Muhammed said, was obviously a kick boxer.

“This man took his time to get accurate kicks to my legs to try to bring me down. I was still handcuffed so all I could do was to try and dodge the kicks.”

When this failed to extract a confession, “five or six policemen came into the room and I was told to take off my shoes and sit in the corner”. As Muhammed recalled his experience his eyes filled with tears and he again began pacing up and down, repeatedly apologising for his highly emotional state.

“Two policemen held my shoulders while another two stood on the tops of my legs. With a roped stick they call a falaka, they lifted my feet and beat the soles with another stick. At the same time, the police holding my shoulders beat the back of my head. I counted eight blows to the back of my head before I passed out.”

He said he was repeatedly revived with cold water so the police could continue their efforts to extract a confession and information of where more drugs were hidden.

But still Muhammed still refused to confess.

“Later, all but one policeman remained in the room with me, a dark skinned man, who told me to remove my trousers.”

When the prisoner refused to do so, the policeman punched him in the stomach and called in more policemen. Stripped naked, except for a bag over his head to prevent him from seeing, Muhammed says he was laid on his side on the floor in a v-shape with his legs bent up so that his feet were close to his face. His testicles were then beaten with a stick.

“After three beats I passed out from the agonising pain,” he said, but was again revived with cold water in the face for a continuation of the beating.

Muhammed believes it was the only the call to prayer that stopped the beating that day.

“There was one policeman who I think was from Turkey. He said they should stop because it wasn’t right to torture a man during the call to prayer,” Muhammed said, both laughing and crying at the irony. He is unsure whether he will be able to father children.

As well as the torture that Muhammed described that day, he said he was deprived of water and constantly threatened that if he told the court about what had taken place, he would face worse punishment. Eventually, however, he was released on bail, after which he spent seven months trying to recover physically and psychologically from his ordeal.

It was during that period that he contacted the Turkish Cypriot Human Rights Foundation (KTIHV) and human rights lawyer Oncel Polili, who has since filed an official complaint on Muhammed’s behalf.

And Muhammed’s accusations of torture are not the only ones on KTIHV’s books.

“We are receiving a steady stream of complaints about beatings in police stations, and occasionally we have doctors’ reports to back these complaints,” Polili said. He added, however, that no police investigations have yet been started as a result of a complaint.

Common among prisoner testimonies are the police’s alleged use of random beatings, and the beating of the soles of the feet with a stick known as a falaka. The use of electrical shocks on the testicles, and the beating of testicles with sticks have also been recorded.

Polili said that although torture is technically illegal in the ‘TRNC’, there is no effective mechanism to prevent it. Furthermore, he believes the use of torture in extracting confessions may have “at some police stations” become institutionalised.

“Having a law is not enough; you have to monitor and investigate accusations,” he said, adding that the problem is made more complicated by the fact that the criminal code does not include the term torture, but refers only to physical mishandling of prisoners.

There is also the problem that there are no forensic scientists in the north, making it difficult for doctors to accurately account for how injuries were caused.

“They can say there is a bruise, but they can’t say how it was made,” Polili says of the doctors appointed to carry out checks on injured prisoners. Adding to the problem is the insistence of many police officers escorting prisoners to remain in the room while checks are being carried out – something that can intimidate both prisoners and doctors.

Naturally, the political non-recognition of the north means that Turkish Cypriot police are even less accountable than those in forces elsewhere because foreign inspectors and groups like Amnesty International never go there.

Unsurprisingly then, police co-operation on calls for enquiries into torture has not been forthcoming.

As Polili pointed out, a well-documented case of the use of torture in the north Nicosia central prison following a prison riot in May 2007 resulted in demands for an enquiry from both doctors and the KTIHV, whose report claimed that prisoners had been “tortured one by one” in the riot’s aftermath.

“It’s been two years and we still haven’t heard a thing,” Polili said, adding: “They are legally obliged to present their findings, as the inhuman treatment of these prisoners was a public crime.”

Polili and his organisation know they have a long way to go before torture is eradicated from Turkish Cypriot prisons and police stations. He accepts too that by highlighting such degrading infringements of human rights he could be putting himself in the firing line – especially with the Turkish Cypriot police still under control of the Turkish military. But Polili and KTHIV are determined to struggle on, despite the fact that few in the Turkish Cypriot media dare to broach the topic.

“The first thing is to raise awareness and to co-operate with civil society, NGOs and the bar association,” Polili says.

“For those who come to us, we will file complaints in order to instigate an investigation, because if someone goes to prison healthy and comes out unhealthy, it is the state’s responsibility to prove its innocence.”

So far it has not.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.ph ... 9&cat_id=9

[Oracle]

It's not "political isolation" which hinders the struggle against torture, unless you consider Turkey politically isolated as well. It is not. Nor is the occupied north, from all the adverts they have for holidays and selling homes and inducements for visitations. How can they claim any isolation, except when they think it excuses them for some shortfall.

This sort of barbaric behaviour has distinguished the Turks for decades, not least since their methods were exposed, inter alia, in Midnight Express. Such methods are probably a carry-over of their Ottoman-Seljuk Turk style, aggressive nihilistic tendencies. They have never really quite managed to shake off the mentality and nurturing which allows such things to manifest.

I hope the poor man finds some form of comfort in his broken life ...

[insan]

It's not "political isolation" which hinders the struggle against torture, unless you consider Turkey politically isolated as well. It is not. Nor is the occupied north, from all the adverts they have for holidays and selling homes and inducements for visitations. How can they claim any isolation, except when they think it excuses them for some shortfall.

This sort of barbaric behaviour has distinguished the Turks for decades, not least since their methods were exposed, inter alia, in Midnight Express. Such methods are probably a carry-over of their Ottoman-Seljuk Turk style, aggressive nihilistic tendencies. They have never really quite managed to shake off the mentality and nurturing which allows such things to manifest.

I hope the poor man finds some form of comfort in his broken life ...

Just another ignorant inference by Oracle. Here is a more sensible inference by me:

Regarding ill-treatment and torture; our Janissary bros in police department of South r 10x more famous than their alikes in police department of TRNC.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE

AI Index: EUR 17/001/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 093
12 April 2006


Cyprus: Police brutality must not go unpunished
Amnesty International calls on the Cypriot authorities to end impunity for police ill-treatment and to ensure that all complaints of police brutality are promptly, thoroughly, impartially and independently investigated and that those responsible are duly punished.

In a letter to the Minister of Justice and Public Order, Doros Theodorou, Amnesty International raises a number of concerns regarding a case involving a number of police officers that is under criminal investigation at the moment.

In the early morning hours of 20 December 2005, Marcos Papageorgiou and Yiannos Nicolaou, both aged 27, were arrested and beaten by plain-clothes policemen in Nicosia. Initially, Marcos Papageorgiou refused to obey a search order by two men, one of whom declared himself to be a police officer, because he was not allowed to examine his police credentials. It is alleged that the police officers had suspected the two men of drug dealing. Amnesty International has had access to a 10-minute video sequence shot by a private individual who witnessed part of the beating.
"It is an absolute disgrace that police officers can behave in such a violent way towards handcuffed and helpless men. The images on the video, including where officers are shown to be slamming Marcos Papageorgiou's head onto the pavement several times while he is lying on the ground and with his hands cuffed behind his back, are appalling" Olga Demetriou, Amnesty International's researcher on Cyprus, said.

"These images of police brutality constitute a clear violation of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment."

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php? ... 006&lang=e

At this occassion, I condemn those so-called police officials, ill-treating, beating and torturing prisoners; besides I condemn those government officials who ignore these facts and protect criminals in police department.

[DT.]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

[YFred]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

[boomerang]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

ask him about his father in law your swine...

[YFred]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

ask him about his father in law your swine...

I know about his Father in law, and I also know about a young lurucadi man who had the shit kicked out of him by RoC Police and Prison warders and got 10000 compensation for his trouble.

[boomerang]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

ask him about his father in law your swine...

I know about his Father in law, and I also know about a young lurucadi man who had the shit kicked out of him by RoC Police and Prison warders and got 10000 compensation for his trouble.

if you knew which I doubt, you would't be talking about it

[YFred]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

ask him about his father in law your swine...

I know about his Father in law, and I also know about a young lurucadi man who had the shit kicked out of him by RoC Police and Prison warders and got 10000 compensation for his trouble.

if you knew which I doubt, you would't be talking about it

His family are not the only ones that suffered. Both sides are as guilty as each other. Nothing annoys me more that when one tries to claim the higher ground. We are all in the same shit.

[boomerang]

You cannot compare the police force and jails of occupied Cyprus with anything else in the Western world. The criminals are running the show and the prisons are not fit for goats, let alone people. Police beatings are a daily and normal occurence.

It is so easy to blame someone else. Look in your own backyard before criticising others. RoC police does not cover itself in glory.

ask him about his father in law your swine...

I know about his Father in law, and I also know about a young lurucadi man who had the shit kicked out of him by RoC Police and Prison warders and got 10000 compensation for his trouble.

if you knew which I doubt, you would't be talking about it

His family are not the only ones that suffered. Both sides are as guilty as each other. Nothing annoys me more that when one tries to claim the higher ground. We are all in the same shit.

so you don't know shit...but in your usual pompous style, with ear on the ground you hear fart from 40 miles away...go figure