By Jean Christou
THE DEFENCE Ministry has been ordered by the Council of Europe to pay damages to a Greek Cypriot homosexual whose rights were violated by a law which has since been amended.A letter dated June 24 from the Council of Europe Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers to Stavros Marangos, the gay man who sued the government in 1996 over the then antiquated law, says the Defence Ministry has three months to pay up.Marangos has been awarded non- pecuniary damages of £1,000 plus £1,134 in legal costs for the violation of his human rights because of the anti-gay law.If the Ministry doesn’t pay in the time allotted the issue will be taken up again by the Council, and the government will be forced to pay interest on a monthly basis.The law outlawing homosexuality between consenting male adults was amended in May 1998 after five years of stalling and several ultimatums from the Council of Europe in the wake of the successful Modinos case. Gay architect Alecos Modinos was the first to take Cyprus to the European Court of Human Rights in an effort to have the law changed. He succeeded in 1993.His application was followed by a similar one by Marangos who included a claim for compensation on several issues relating to the alleged treatment he received from the Cyprus government because of his homosexuality.Marangos said yesterday he has not yet contacted the defence ministry regarding the compensation, but he believes the government will pay up in the allotted time.He said he was slightly disappointed with the results of his case considering the treatment he believes he suffered for being gay and “considering they accepted the accusations involved,” he said.But the European Commission of Human Rights only declared admissible Marangos’ complaint that being a practising homosexual was a criminal offence which interfered with his right to respect for his private life. The other issues were declared inadmissible.Marangos, who lived in Greece for many years, had claimed he was treated badly on his return to Cyprus by government agencies relating to army service.As a rule the Defence Ministry attempts to find ways not to have to admit homosexuals to the ranks. In one specific case, the army release papers of a homosexual man, obtained by The Sunday Mail,state the candidate is unsuitable because he is “suffering from sexual perversion, homosexual (submissive homosexuality)”.In Marangos’ case he was initially exempted from military service because of his ties abroad but this was later reversed and he was told he would have to do military service.A confidential letter to the Attorney-general in 1993 from the Defence Ministry said: “The applicant is a homosexual and as you know, homosexuals in Cyprus are exempted from military service once their `sickness’ is certified… as a result it is up to the applicant to invoke, if he so wishes, his homosexuality”.Marangos was told to report for duty in June 1993 but failed to show up and later he informed the Ministry he had no intention of doing so. Since then he has received call-up papers every six months and has consistently refused to report for duty. He has never been taken to court or prosecuted.Marangos said that when the police come to find out why he has not reported for duty he tells them it’s because the National Guard is an illegal body under the Cyprus constitution.”It states that the National Guard should comprise 2,000 men made up of 60 per cent Greek Cypriots and 40 per cent Turkish Cypriots,” he said. “I write this down for them and they say `thank you’ and leave.”He believes the government has never prosecuted him because he would raise the constitutionality issue of the National Guard at court.
