RECENTLY I was stopped twice in less than a week by a member of the Cypriot police motorcycle division calling themselves the Z team. Suited out in plush motorcycles and leather gear, this element of the force is rather partial on one priority: running around all day long chasing unsuspecting moped riders and issuing them ludicrous fines for failing to wear a helmet. And all that comes with attitude, humiliation and untouchable approach. But it has become commonplace throughout Cyprus to see police wearing no helmets on motorcycles, and both police cars and motorcycles jumping red lights.
In one such instance, where a large police patrol car jumped red, it was only marginally missed by a Jeep driven by a lady driving in the green light lane. But that didn’t stop about five or six policemen jumping out the patrol car and heading straight towards the car of the shaken lady who only just managed to control her car and come to a halt. It took another driver who had witnessed it and me to lend support to the lady, as witnesses that it was the police that jumped red. The response to that was that we should belt up and go about our business.
In another instance, caught on red light alongside a police motorcycle, I was left a little bemused with the rather open untouchable initiative of the particular police motorcycle to jump red, as if nobody else was present. And this was in broad daylight with many witnesses. One driver in a car next to me, told me: “They can do what they want, nobody can touch them.”
On the whole, it has for some time now become apparent that the police force in Cyprus is not to uphold the law, but is structured as a business, targeting most notably the lower classes, which more bluntly implies that a country with a bent political scene will inevitably have a bent police force. And both politicians and police are only there to look after their own interests and those of privilege.
And this monstrosity calls itself the Cypriot police force…
My only brush with the law over the years has ever been for my reluctance to abide by this unfounded law that takes away my right to make a choice whether I want to put on a helmet or not. You can all check me up. And you will find that I have no criminal record whatsoever for at least the last 20 years, apart from countless fines for not wearing a helmet.
It is an openly executed con, which implies that the business intent of the particular law becomes all too apparent, clearly targeting the lower classes of the little cash they make. Fifty pounds a time is a lot of money for the likes of me to hand over for a nonsense law, which does not care to provide any proof that can lend support of having legitimate cause. I would like to see some statistics that can back up this ruthless con you call a law. We are talking here a small moped that is limited in the speed it can accelerate to, which implies that while I do not condone failure to abide by this law for higher powered motorcycles, it is ludicrous that the same law should apply for mopeds capable only of mediocre speeds. So it becomes a joke to see this Z team running around all day long at every turn you may take and pulling up decent, law-abiding citizens and giving them the criminal treatment to rob them of their hard earned cash.
But when I became insistent with getting my point across to a particular superior officer of the Z team he lost no time in getting his ‘we rule’ attitude out and swiftly showing me the door.
So where is this democracy it is supposed to be about? But there is no democracy. There are only bent politicians and a bent police force,
And if you still don’t get the joke of the particular law, it implies that a country that has sold out lower class jobs to foreign labour and more recently for the few left over to cheap Turkish labour, and neglects to offer its citizens a sense of security in essential areas like automatic unemployment benefits and NHS service, cannot turn around and pretend with this helmet con of a law to have the best interests of my safety in mind.
This country is a joke, better known as the land of the Merc and BMW, where the priority of its people is for everyone to compete, in bettering each other for who is the biggest sleaze of them all.
And the police are no more than the servants of the politicians and the rich. And that is possibly the case in every country, not only Cyprus. It is just that in Cyprus the bent aspect of the police force is more openly executed for all to see, in broad daylight.
