By Alex Mita
GREEN PARTY activist Roxanne Coudounari alleged last night she was manhandled by police while she was trying to stage an anti-British Bases protest at the launch of the British Council’s new Knowledge and Learning Centre in Nicosia.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Coudounari said the area around the Cyprus Museum and Municipal Theatre, where the British Council offices are, looked like a concentration camp because of the presence of so much barbed wire and police.
“Our intentions were to stage a peaceful protest” against the erection of a new antenna at Akrotiri, she said. “We had what I think was a very humorous message to give to Tony Blair that said ‘Dear Mr Blair, why don’t you jam your base?'”
But Coudounari said when police saw the way she was dressed — in a strawberry costume — and the fact that she was carrying a banner, they asked her to show them what was on the banner. When she refused they started pulling and shoving her, she claimed.
Coudounari also said police officers hurled abuse at her. “They asked for my ID card and called me a liar,” she said.
She said Greens Deputy George Perdikis came and calmed the situation, but she also insisted that the police do not allow people wanting to speak their minds to do so.
“It is my democratic right as a citizen of the Republic to protest whenever and in any way I want,” she said. “If I want to address the House dressed as Pinocchio, it is my right — and no one can tell me otherwise.”
Coudounari said the her intention had been to hand out flyers and Cyprus- made jam.
But police inspector Charalambos Voutounos, who was in charge of security at the event, dismissed her allegations last night.
“We were instructed by HQ not to allow any protesters into the area,” he said.
“The woman said she was an actress and that she was rehearsing with other actors in the Municipal Theatre across the street from the British Council, ” he told the Cyprus Mail.
“By the time we realised she was not an actress she had managed to enter the theatre and was preparing to display a banner. Because we didn’t know the nature of the message, and fearing that it could be offensive, we asked to see what was written on it and she refused,” Voutounos said.
“We used the necessary force to pull her away, and then released her when she showed us that there was nothing offensive on the banner. We even helped her find her mobile phone.”
Voutounos said that when she saw the photographers, Koudounaris began shouting and screaming, and they had no choice but to remove her from the area.
