Cyprus-Forum.com

[Hermes]

The Cyprus Mail argues that Michalis Sarris has been the victim of a set-up by the brutal regime in the north.

Our View: Sarris should not be tempted to return to justice of kangaroo court

FORMER Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was charged by the Turkish Cypriot ‘court’ and released yesterday afternoon, after being held for seven days in a police cell, without justification other than to give time to Turkish Cypriot police to come up with allegedly incriminating evidence against him. This included using youths, who had been beaten up while in police custody, as witnesses against him.

Yesterday, the police said they had another witness who was being held in connection with a minor drug offence as a witness. Sarris was released on bail, with a trial set for November 16, facing charges of committing an unnatural act, conspiracy to commit a felony and indecent assault.

He would be very unwise to return to a kangaroo court in a place which regards consensual adult same-sex sexual activity a criminal offence, where police routinely abuse their powers, where there is total disregard for the rights of suspects and judges seem terrified of questioning police actions. Is there any chance of a fair trial in a ‘court’ that tolerates the use of fabricated evidence by the police?

The primary witness, a 17-year-old youth arrested with Sarris, on Monday told the court that he wanted to withdraw his confession because it had been extracted under duress. A doctor who had examined him on Friday and saw him again on Monday said he had a wound on his head he did not have on Friday, thus supporting his claim that he had been beaten up. The same doctor testified there had been no sexual contact between the two, yet the judge renewed the remand order, sending the 17-year-old back to the police cell and putting his safety at risk.

Apart from the persecution of homosexuals, the way the Turkish Cypriot police treat teenagers is truly disgusting. They are now hoping to back the charges they had brought against Sarris, by using youths held in connection with other offences. Did they give them a good beating to ensure they would provide incriminating evidence?

This whole case has been a complete farce right from the start, when the Turkish Cypriot police broke into the house in which Sarris and his friends were, and claimed they were investigating a case of sex with minors, which was a blatant lie, casting aspersions on the reputation of a good man in the process. Suspects have been beaten up, and youngsters held in connection with unrelated offences are being used as witnesses.

Sarris should stay away from the ‘court’ of this brutal regime which has proved its contempt for human rights.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/michalis-sar ... t/20111021

[Get Real!]

I find it ridiculous that so many are huffing and puffing about the occupation regime’s handling of the case when the very existence of this occupation regime is the gross violation itself that the EU doesn’t seem to want to address!

It makes as much sense as complaining that a serial killer hasn’t bothered to clean up after a meal while totally ignoring his crimes!

Also, nobody seems to be addressing what happens with Sarris henceforth in the RoC!

In case you still don’t get it…

We have a politician who goes to the occupied areas for sex!

Put bluntly, it’s a politician who “negotiates” the Cyprus problem with Turks by day and then goes to fuck with them by night! How lovely!

Is there a violation of laws, guidelines and principles here or not?

Should this individual continue to be in office and what can be done to prevent any further embarrassments to this incompetent group of seemingly endless debacles who call themselves the government of the RoC?

[Hermes]

A couple of things struck me about this CM piece which Get Real picks up on. It's really about how the EU stress on individual rights of minorities has become a kind of fetish. And how the outrage about this case has focused on the treatment of homosexuality in the north.

I don't recall a Cyprus Mail piece being written with so much anger and self-righteousness about any aspect of the Cyprus problem. But the Sarris case has really annoyed them and they have thrown their liberal disgust at the occupation regime for it. This is welcome to an extent which is why I posted it. But it is a comforting liberal narrative which overlooks the fact that the real victims of the occupation regime are not just homosexuals but the Cypriot people who endure the daily indignity of occupation.

Unfortunately, the Cypriots are a white, middle-class, largely conservative people who don't 'look' or act like an oppressed people should. They don't throw bombs these days or blow themselves up like the Palestinians for example. As a result the Cyprus 'problem' is largely ignored in the Western media and is not a fashionable liberal cause in the West. But someone is arrested for homosexuality in the north and suddenly the media and EU politicians are up in arms!

I've argued from the start that Sarris was culpable of an amazing lack of judgement and hypocrisy. Of overlooking the atrocious existence of the "trnc" in pursuit of personal indulgence. Sarris might be free to do what he likes with whoever he likes in the rest of Europe but he seems to have forgotten that the "trnc" is not a normal place.

For a Cypriot politician to put his personal proclivities above his responsibilities to his own country is gross negligence. I am assuming his disgrace is complete and he won't be allowed to take up public office again. Not because he is a homosexual but because he forgot as a politician where his responsibilities lie.

Sarris is not a martyr. His treatment at the hands of the north's authorities was unjust and personally humiliating. But so what? If the laws are changed in the north and he is allowed to have sex in the north with young men, how does that change anything? It is the existence of the "trnc" that is the abomination here, not the fact that he is not allowed to fuck Turkish boys.

No doubt the CM is right that the brutal, backward and arbitrary nature of the regime in the north has been exposed to the world. But it shouldn't take the plight of Sarris to have to remind us of this.

[Get Real!]

Isn’t the fact that this politician having Turkish lovers, a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

[ZoC]

Isn’t the fact that this politician has Turkish lovers, a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

any cypriot who's got the balls to go over and give the turks a bloody good rodgering up the arse is hardly gay, mate...

[Get Real!]

Isn’t the fact that this politician has Turkish lovers, a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

any cypriot who's got the balls to go over and give the turks a bloody good rodgering up the arse is hardly gay, mate...

That's based on your assumption that he is not on the receiving end!

[ZoC]

Isn’t the fact that this politician has Turkish lovers, a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

any cypriot who's got the balls to go over and give the turks a bloody good rodgering up the arse is hardly gay, mate...

That's based on your assumption that he is not on the receiving end!

u mean people pay to be on the receiving end? man the world's f*cked up...

[Hermes]

Isn’t the fact that this politician having Turkish lovers, is a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

I think he's been involved in negotiations around aspects of the economy. If the Turks were smarter they'd have used his secret visits to the north to their advantage. But the way the occupation authorities have tried to expose and smear the bloke has just blown up in their faces. Now Eroglu has promised the EU he is going to change the north's anti-discriminatory laws against homosexuality! Suddenly the EU is poking its nose into the "laws" of the occupied areas giving them a taste of what to expect come a solution. Meanwhile Eroglu is pleading for derogations from EU law. Fat chance...

[Capt J Sparrow]

Isn’t the fact that this politician has Turkish lovers, a conflict of interests and a matter of national security to have him “negotiating” aspects of the CyProb?

any cypriot who's got the balls to go over and give the turks a bloody good rodgering up the arse is hardly gay, mate...

That's based on your assumption that he is not on the receiving end!

Does this mean that if you are not on the receiving end, then you're not gay?

Man, the Cypriot mentality is so screwed..... (sometimes).

[Sotos]

So when it comes to sex a 17 years old guy is an innocent naive minor who could not have possibly wanting to have sex with somebody older but then for the Turkish "police" 17 years old is old enough to beat him up and keep him in jail?