EIGHT illegal immigrants being held at Nicosia’s Central Prison have complained that the authorities do not respect their religious beliefs, it was reported yesterday.
The Pakistanis appeared before a Nicosia court on Sunday to have their remand renewed, when they lodged the complaint that they were being served pork in custody, a fact that went against their religion.
But Nicosia District Deputy Head of Police, Ioannis Diaouris, said that although prison holding cells and police holding cells were two separate entities, as far as he knew prison governor Haris Themistocleous respected other peoples’ beliefs and he was sure different meals were prepared to take them into account.
“When we keep prisoners in our holding cells,” he said, “they are not served pork if they do not want it. We plan our menus around their religious beliefs if need be. However, our menu is not the same menu that is served in the central prison”.
Diaouris insisted that the police respected different beliefs and were sensitive to the fact that Muslims did not eat pork.
“I don’t even know if the report claiming this allegation is true, nor do I know any details,” he said, “but I believe that the prison respects other peoples’ values the same way we do.”
“In fact,” he added, “we go a step further. Because we only serve homemade foods that your average Cypriot eats, and not so-called high-class meals, if a prisoner wants a particular type of food that is outside our prison budget, such as a certain type of fish or steak for instance, we will order it and bring it to him, and he can pay for it himself.”
According to yesterday’s press reports, however, the court said the authorities should respect the eight Pakistanis’ religious beliefs and that their diet should be modified accordingly.
The group arrived in Cyprus recently under unknown circumstances, seeking political asylum. On Sunday, police requested that they be re-remanded in custody so that they could finish determining their identity, because not one of them was carrying a passport or travel documents. They had to be identified to determine whether or not their request for political asylum was genuine, said reports.
Prison governor Themistocleous was unavailable for comment yesterday.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
