A CLAUSE in this year’s budget has already allocated £110,000 for the purchase of electronic surveillance cameras, it emerged yesterday to the surprise of officials and politicians who earlier this week described police plans for CCTV as tentative at best.
On Wednesday, the Justice Ministry insisted that funding for such a project still had to be approved.
But Permanent Secretary Dr. Lazaros Savvides retracted his statement yesterday, blaming a mix up in communications with the police authority.
Police requested the £110,000 approved for the “purchase of surveillance systems for open spaces so that police may follow the suspect movements of criminals who are prone to moving in those areas.’
The sum is part of a total £2,260,000 allocated to the police for the purchase of equipment.
The acquisition of those funds is subject to approval by the Justice Ministry before the request can be taken to the Finance Ministry. Given that the purchase of surveillance cameras involves the implementation of new policy on how to prevent or restrict crime, Savvides said Justice Minister Nicos Koshis had specifically requested police authorities to consult with the Attorney-general, the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data, the Chairman of the House Human Rights Committee and non-governmental organisations on human rights before making their application.
Savvides cited the success of police forces in Europe using surveillance to fight crime. Commenting on the type of crime such methods would be used against, he said: “I would think that there were certain areas in Cyprus where drugs are used considerably, thus making it more of a drug issue.”
According to yesterday’s Phileleftheros, the Chairman of the House Human Rights Committee, Aristos Chrysostomou, had no idea that funds for such equipment were ever approved in the budget and asked the Justice Minister for written information on the Chief of Police’s suggestion to install surveillance cameras.
The President of the Pancyprian Association for the Protection of Human Rights, Stelios Theodoulou, yesterday expressed his concern about the plans, describing them as “intervention in the personal life of a person and his dignity”.
This intervention comes from the state, which is bound to safeguard the human rights of its citizens and their enjoyment of them, he said, adding: “Each and every community understands human rights in accordance with their culture. I cannot accept that an American and a Cypriot have the same notion of human rights,” he said referring to the increased infringement of human rights in the US for the sake of security.
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.
