HUMAN Rights organisations and political refugees last night agreed to step up measures if the government today fails to answer their demands.
“We will set off from Eleftheria Square at 10am and head for the Labour Ministry where we will ask the Minister to take responsibility for these peoples welfare as stipulated by law,” Doros Polycarpou, immigrant support group, KISA, president said.
Polycarpou was speaking to the Cyprus Mail following a lengthy two and a half hour meeting between 45 people including representatives from each immigrant community, as well as representatives from KISA, the Workers Democracy, Youth Against
Nationalism, Anatropi Journal and the Gardash Cultural Centre.
Last Monday asylum seekers from across the island flooded Nicosia’s Eleftheria Square in a desperate plea to have their human rights met. They have said they will not leave until the government meets their demands.
They are asking for employment, housing, medical and pharmaceutical care, examination of each case by a government commission independent from the police, access to lawyers and independent translators that are unrelated to the embassies of their own countries, an end to their long-term incarceration, an end to police beatings, and an end to secret deportations.
Since the demonstration began asylum seekers have marched en masse onto the presidential palace, the Interior Ministry, the Social Services and the House of Representatives. Each time they have met with officials who have admitted political refugees face severe difficulties and each time they are told to go home and the matter will be reviewed.
Polycarpou said: “Tomorrow [today] we are going to go to the Labour Minister and ask him to clearly take a stand on a matter that directly involves his ministry. The people should either be allowed to work [without limitations] or if not, to receive financial aid. We want a clear answer which of the two it’s to be, which the law clearly stipulates must immediately be implemented for these people.”
The law currently only allows asylum seekers to be employed in agriculture and cattle-breeding roles. The legislation was brought into force as a measure to deter economic migrants from coming to Cyprus, of which the government believes 99 per cent of political asylum applicants are made up.
He added: “The second thing we want is for talks with the government to start on the other issues, which we know will take time to find solutions for.”
Polycarpou said if the government failed to meet these two demands their demonstration measures would be stepped up.
“I don’t yet want to say how we’ll step them up. We’ll wait and see what happens and accordingly announce what we’re going to do next,” he said.
Earlier in the day hundreds of Bangladeshi and Pakistani political refugees flocked to Nicosia’s Elfetheria Square to join the multitude of asylum seekers already camped out around the square.
The sudden flood of foreign nationals to the capital’s main square did not go unnoticed by police who dispatched two patrol cars to the area to keep a close watch on the situation.
KISA representative Doros Michael told the Mail the refugees relied on food, clothes and money donations to get by.
“Our money has run out. We managed to gather about ?800 from various collections we made and now I only have ?80 left,” he said.
“We need about ?100 per day to cover the peoples’ basic needs (food, baby food, pampers and medicines) over and above the food donations we get from other people.”
They have been living on a diet of mostly rice, bulgur and pulses, he said.
Michael said: “This cannot go on. Pending a decision of their application, asylum seekers have the right to work, government housing, medical care, and, where they’re unable to work, financial aid. The state is acting illegally [in its treatment of the refugees].”
He added: “The government has to undertake its responsibilities because Cypriot organisations cannot be responsible [for their welfare] indefinitely because the demands are enormous. We cannot have 200-300 people on the street for another week, despite what they themselves (asylum seekers) say.”
The human rights activist said the men had started receiving daily pressure from their wives and children, who were fed up with the filthy living conditions, to give up the struggle and go home.
“Don’t think this is easy for them. They’re getting pressure from all sides but they say they have nowhere to go so what can they do.”
On the pavement six or seven tents house entire families and twice as many are dotted around the park in the moat. Although the refugees have tried to keep the area as clean as possible, cigarette butts are strewn everywhere and overflowing public rubbish bins attract flies and bugs.
Bangladeshi music can be heard playing from a tape recorder somewhere in the park while Kurds, Iraqis, Iranians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis mingle among each other.
Older children play with a basketball they’ve been given, while the younger ones cling to their mothers’ skirts crying for food.
One two-and-a-half-year-old girl smiles up at the adults around her, completely unaware her hands and feet are black with dirt. Another six-year-old girl limps over to her father, a large gash on her right foot, seeking some comfort.
A young mother tries to rock her six-month-old son to sleep and another man tries to teach his three-year-old it’s unacceptable to spit over the moat.
Michael said KISA had offered to bathe the children and many were given second-hand clothes by locals whose own children had outgrown their garments and had no more need for them.
Twelve-year-old Mohammed said he had bathed once in the past eight days. He is the eldest of five, lives and goes to school in Paphos.
“I’m fed up and don’t like it here. It’s full of strangers and it’s dirty. I want to go home. I haven’t got many friends here, there I’ve got lots of friends,” he said.
Mustaffa, 33, said: “The government has no shame. They claim to be European, but they’re European only in name.”
He accused the government and immigration department of operating no differently to Arab nations and said bribing officials was common.
“For ?150 you can get a pink slip and for more a new immigration file opened,” he said.
The father of three pointed out a man whose daughters aged six and four, clung to each leg.
“See him. His wife has been in jail for six weeks. They’re threatening to send her back to Syria where she will definitely be persecuted. He is just one of many.”
He added: “A week ago there were only 100 of us. Today there are 500. Every day we increase in number. If the government doesn’t solve this soon, the refugees will react.”
