By Alex Mita
A NICOSIA District Judge yesterday rejected a police request for the eight-day remand of 20 foreign men seeking political asylum and blasted the force for not complying with the asylum law.
The men, 11 Turks, three Palestinians, three Syrians and one Pakistani presented themselves at the Paphos Gate police station on Tuesday seeking political asylum.
The men said they came from the north and that they could not go back to their countries because they were of Kurdish origin.
Only three men had any form of identification.
They were held in custody by police and appeared before the court for a remand hearing on Wednesday.
But Judge Alecos Panayiotou rejected the police request for remand, saying police should comply with the law and provide the foreigners with temporary accommodation until their cases were examined.
Panayiotou said that according to the constitution, no one could be detained unless under suspicion of having committed a criminal offence.
Politis quoted Panayiotou as saying: “I am in serious doubt whether the provisions of the refugee law that order the remand of foreigners for identification purposes coincide with the provisions of the constitution,” Panayiotou said.
The president of the Immigrant Support action group told the Cyprus Mail yesterday the police had misinterpreted the legislation.
“A provision in the legislation states that asylum seekers could only be held in custody on special occasions,” Doros Polycarpou said.
“The police have turned this provision into a rule when it comes to asylum seekers without any form of identification and were holding the asylum seekers in custody and in some cases without even giving them time to apply for asylum.”
Polycarpou said the asylum seekers were then taken to jail until their identity was determined with the excuse that it was for the public interest.
“But they never said what the public interest was and these people often languished in prison for up to a month,” Polycarpou said.
“And because the central prisons are not police stations according to the law, the asylum seekers are not allowed to apply for political asylum.”
Polycarpou said that in some cases people were left in jail for up to a month and after they were released had to wait for weeks without any government benefits until their asylum request was considered.
“Without the letter for political asylum they can’t enjoy any government benefits, meaning that they spend their time here without money and a home,” he said.
Polycarpou said the Immigrant Support group would send an official letter of complaint to the justice department in the hope the government would act to protect the rights of asylum seekers.
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.
