Zox, forgive the open nature of this communication. Unfortunately, I have no choice since private messaging is "temporarily" disabled for new members. What i would have sent to you in a private message follows.
Sir,
I hope that you will not be offended by my decision to contact you directly rather than approach you in the context of the forum in which you have chosen to bring your plight to the attention of others.
I write for at least three reasons, the first of which is that I am naturally appalled and moved by the experiences that you, your wife and children have been forced to endure by representatives of the government of the Republic of Cyprus.
The second reason is that I have, over the five years during which I myself have lived - and continue to live - as an immigrant in Cyprus, been unable to deny the appearance of a consistent pattern of callousness, inhumane indifference and systematic failure at all levels of state machinery to implement the meaning of international treaties - to which the Cyprus government is a signatory - on behalf of immigrants on Cypriot soil.
It is with sadness and incredulity that I make the observation that the plight of your wife, yourself and your children is one of a considerable number of cases that are reported and unreported by an arbitrary, non-objective and tightly controlled media. And herein lies my third reason for contacting you: I have, perhaps belatedly, begun to understand that it may be precisely the fact that yours is one of a quantifiable number of cases, each of which is independent and complete in its own narrative but which shares clearly defined common themes with many others of its kind, that may be your strength.
I am currently attempting to find ways to assist other immigrants and political refugees that have been inexcusably and illegally shunned by the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus. During my efforts, a consistently recurring theme presents itself: the nature of the imbalance of the power against which you struggle. How is this imbalance manifested? I believe that a significant contributing factor to the imbalance of power that causes you such suffering is that you, or your family, as a social phenomenon, are " singly located". That is not to say, as my be commonly understood, that you or your family or immigrants in general can easily be "found"; rather, it is to make the observation that your own "power" - in this case, the degree to which you can make (by persuasion or other moral means) the authorities behave in your favour - does not extend or project beyond your single selves, as individuals, as a single family and as a single instance of unrecompensed state-sponsored injustice. For this reason - precisely this one I believe - the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus, from government ministers down to the least experienced immigration officer, feel no obligation to acknowledge your suffering in the terms and context that it deserves. As a result, in the absence of official recognition, officially sanctioned violations of international and national human rights laws occur in Cyprus on a daily basis.
The question arises, after having arrived at this point in my thinking, that is the same question that haunts your daily life: what can be done?
Perhaps you may have realised it already, but I shall make it clear from the outset so that you may not be under any illusion: I am not a professional in the field of immigration law, or any field of law. Neither am I an experienced "campaigner" in the field of human rights or any other grass-roots level political movement. I am a thinker and writer (I philosophise but cannot accept the name of "philosopher") presently living in Cyprus as an immigrant, though with the exceptional advantage of having a Cypriot-national as a wife. In recent years I have been studying certain ideas of witness, context and a rather abstract notion of comportment and how these forces are manipulated and shaped in modern, post-industrial societies. My thinking has led me to a consideration of forces of power in the modern state and how this power affects the body - the physical, psychological and social body and their expression (comportment). I have found myself unintentionally - at least at the outset - giving much time to considering the experiences and suffering of the weakest and most vulnerable in our societies: the sick, the mentally insane and those who otherwise do not belong, such as immigrants, asylum seekers and even naturalised citizens. Along the way that have tried to formulate concepts of single and multiple "locatedness" - one or more points of origin of influence that a single person or social body may have. According to these ideas, you and your family are singly located: the origin of your influence has only one point or source - yourselves. This is characteristic of many immigrants and asylum seekers (political, economic or otherwise) who find themselves on the wrong side of the power imbalance deployed by most modern states. Your power, as characterised by your abilities to make others (such as the authorities) behave in your favour, even against their own policy or rationale, can increase in accordance with your ability to increase the number of points of locatedness that you may draw upon: you must become "multiply located".
I fear I may have already lost your interest in your time of suffering by being so abstract in this message, but I may be able to offer you practical assistance, and that is after all my aim. You may achieve this multiple locatedness to which I refer in a rather simple way: by multiplying the number of material references to you and your family's plight. I would propose that this may be done, at least initially, by gathering, copying and publishing in various media whatever documentation you may have that serves as evidence of your suffering. Such documentation may include your visas, clearly showing their expiration dates (which are, as you have described, five years subsequent to the date they were first issued), any letters and communications (emails, faxes) that you have sent to official representatives illustrating in any ways your family's needs and predicament, any documentation you may have received concerning your denied petition to start up a cartography enterprise (a fact, in itself, that could prove the basis of a very extensive but separate discussion) - in short, absolutely any and all documentation that you may have retained that relates to your unhappy and unjust experiences in Cyprus. Having compiled this documentation, however tangentially related to your family's experiences, then it is necessary to duplicate it. The most efficient way, of course, would be to digitalise it. Though I believe it is possible to point to increasing digitalisation as being partly responsible for the injustice you have suffered, at least in this instance, you should attempt to use it against those who implicitly deploy it against you. By scanning the documentation and storing it securely in more than one place (I may be able to offer you secure online storage for this documentation), you will be able to disseminate the evidence of your experiences at the hands of the Cypriot authorities with ease. You may begin to see how we can use this practical act dissemination to increase the number of points of origin of your influence and so help to push you as quickly as possibly into a state of multiple locatedness.
With the gathered documentation scanned onto computer and stored both locally and remotely, the next task would be to select routes of least resistance. You will no doubt agree that the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus are in fact the route of greatest resistance: one finds oneself, in almost every case, wondering if the authorities of the Cypriot state will even reply to your communications and petitions - the question of whether or not their response will be constructive is entirely moot (and negative). I suggest, therefore, that though the Republic of Cyprus is responsible for your suffering, you may in reality find more redress by seeking the help of organised, experienced and high profile advocates: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, StateWatch, the Electronic Immigration Network, the European Immigration Lawyers Group (though their website is a little out-of-date since the expansion of the EU to 25 memebers). In addition, there are elements in the traditional press and broadcasting that are naturally inclined to sympathise with your plight, such as the British BBC, Greek-national left-wing daily newspapers, British-national left-leaning newspapers. These entities have a particular place in the official Greek-Cypriot consciousness and the stories they cover often and quickly find their way into the Greek-Cypriot news network.
There are, however, two more factors to build-in to this sort of plan of action. With digitalised documentation, and having disemminated it to high profile advocacy groups and other sympathetic and internationally renowned "news" amplifiers such as the BBC, it would be important to inform the Cypriot authorities of your actions. Every email, every letter, every fax that is sent, every interview (and hopefully there will be a number) that is given, every website that carries your story - all of these should be copied in detail and sent by email, post and fax to officials of the Cyprus government, at national and local level. These will provide supplements to emails, reports and stories sent and carried by organistations such as Human Rights Watch, the European Immigration Lawyers Group and the like. The aim will be to make the Cypriot authorities aware - even if they do not officially acknowledge it - that they are not any longer dealing with a single family, a single father's passionate petition and a few interested but inactive sympathetic citizens, such as those who frequent the forum on which you have aired your story. Once the authorities begin to understand that they are dealing with tens, perhaps hundreds, of individuals, organisations, groups and other parties, including international media outlets, then they may begin to feel the pressure of multiple locatedness. At that point, you will no longer be alone and singly located.
At the end of this overlong message, I would like to offer you, sir, practical support. If I have not alientated you with my theorising, I would like to offer what few skills and whatever time I have in helping to raise your profile and put pressure on the unjust authorities of Cyprus. For example, I earn my living (barely) as an experienced Unix programmer and administrator here in Cyprus. I have access to server hosts on which it would be possible to quickly and effectively write websites and email programs that would be able to do very real and effective activities on an automated basis, such as sending a copy of every email that is sent from its domain to the Cypriot authorities - and repeating this process every day, perhaps several times a day. Records of all communications would be logged and an inventory of your efforts and rebuttals would build up, providing you with yet more evidence with which to petition for help from sympathetic advocate individuals and organisations. I must make plain that I have no money that I can offer in support (I have four young children of my own and a very poor salary, as do many here in Cyprus) and, as I have noted, I am not a professional campaigner or even an experienced one. I am merely an average citizen who has arrived at a point at which I believe something must be done, that the Cypriot authorities must be brought to account.
Again, forgive me the length of this message and its theoretical tone. There is much that I have not said in the interest of addressing your urgent need for help. If you are willing for me to be involved and offer whatever I may able to give, please email me at the address below with an update on the detention of your wife to begin with along with any information that you believe to be of immediate and urgent relevance. After that, I believe we should begin with a detailed review of what documentation you may have in your possession and may be able to obtain with a view to bringing to an end your wife's illegal detention. If you choose to email me, I will first send you my public encryption key which you can use so that from that point onwards we may exchange sensitive information securely. Once you have my public key, I shall send you my personal telephone number.
I look forward to reading your reply. May I presume no more than to urge you to be strong and not succumb to the discouragement you endure. It would be my privilege if I were able to help - even in the smallest way - to alleviate some of the pain you suffer.
Many kind regards and in solidarity,
K.
[email protected]