LAW Commissioner and President of Ethnopad, the National Organisation for the Protection of Human Rights, Leda Koursoumba said yesterday she was looking into why a Kurdish family of asylum seekers had been arrested.
Koursoumba was alerted to the issue after allegations by the Action for Immigrant Support and Anti-Racism Organisation (KISA) that the Migration Department was violating the rights of asylum seekers.
KISA’s Doros Polycarpou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that the Kurdish family had been trafficked from the north some 10 days ago. “They went straight to a police station and applied for asylum,” he said.
Polycarpou said that although police accepted the application and filled our the required paperwork, they immediately arrested the man and sent his wife and two children, one aged three and the other a two-month old baby, to stay at an old people’s home in Lakatamia.
“Legally if someone applies within a reasonable time for asylum, they should not be punished,” said Polycarpou. “Not only that, the government is obliged to provide assistance and protection to the family. Yet they have put the man’s wife and children in an old people’s home and gave instructions that they not to be allowed out or to see anyone.”
Polycarpou said there were no facilities at the home for a young adult and two children, and that they were restricted day and night to one room. He said KISA had asked that the woman be allowed to visit their offices so that she could be informed of her rights but the request was refused.
“We are trying to get permission for a lawyer to visit her,” said Polycarpou. “You are allowed access to a lawyer, even in detention. There is no legal basis to what they are doing and no reason to arrest an asylum seeker.”
Also, he said police were only allowed to detain asylum seekers for up to a month if they have no means of identification, and to give the authorities time to establish their identities. Asylum seekers who present their identities are entitled to go free until their applications are examined, he added.
Polycarpou said KISA had sent letters to the chief of police demanding the immediate release of the Kurdish man and an explanation into the circumstances under which he was detained.
Koursoumba also said she was investigating the case.
“I don’t have an official report yet,” she told the Cyprus Mail. “The only way this man could have been arrested was for illegal entry to the Republic. I have been assured by the head of the Migration Department that asylum seekers would not be treated that way. I am on the case.”
