CIVIL Registry and Migration Director Anny Shakalli yesterday defended her decision to go ahead with the deportation of a 40-year-old Russian woman and her three children, despite a strong public outcry that the judgment had been too harsh and the handling of the case inhumane.
“The family were in Cyprus illegally and I stand by my decision,” she told the Cyprus Mail. “Even the Supreme Court upheld my decision, so who am I to question it?”
Vera Yudina and her children aged 16, 11 and 10 were deported back to Russia yesterday, despite having lived in Limassol for the past 13 years.
Her husband was deported last month after his Supreme Court appeal to have his deportation order overturned, failed. Authorities said Yudina had not been deported at the same time on humanitarian grounds and because she had promised to pack up and leave on her own volition. But instead of leaving, she disappeared, police said.
According to news reports, immigration police “grabbed” the woman’s two youngest children on Tuesday as they set off for school accompanied by a family friend. They were then allegedly used as leverage to force the Russian out of hiding. The 10-year-old is said to suffer from a severe health problems and has only one kidney.
DISY deputy Stella Kyriakides called for an immediate investigation into the matter and said the Limassol aliens and immigration department’s handling of the two minors had been “unacceptable”. She also said would be calling for the matter’s discussion in the House Human Rights Committee.
Kyriakides said: “This issue raises a number of questions such as why were the children seized and under such stressful conditions, particularly as one of the children suffers from a serious health condition, who gave instructions for this treatment, why was a social welfare services officer not present, and why were the children used as a measure of blackmail to arrest the mother.”
But Aliens and Immigration Unit assistant commander Christakis Pavlou refuted the accusations of mismanagement.
“The police doesn’t grab, it protects,” he said.
Pavlou explained that a search warrant had been issued for Yudina after she failed to leave the country within the 10 days’ grace period the unit had given her to sort out her personal belongings.
“We found the kids yesterday [Tuesday] morning as they were getting into a car to go to school. We cut off the car and took them back to the apartment block and knocked on the door, but there was no answer.”
Pavlou said the children and family friend had claimed Yudina was out.
“We knew she was inside and had a search warrant for the premises, but didn’t want to arrest her in front of the children so we took them back to the station and called the social welfare services to come and collect them, which they did. We then went back to the house around noon, where we found both the woman and her eldest daughter,” he said.
Shakalli said the couple had come to Cyprus in 1993 after the husband secured work with an offshore company and was given a residency visa until 2000. That same year, the Central Bank terminated its business with the husband’s company.
For the next four years, Shakallis said the couple had used any method to remain on the island, including “deceiving the authorities” and “abusing state procedures”.
“In 2001, the husband was deported and returned using false documents. In May 2000, the wife said her husband had left and she asked to stay on the grounds that she was going to marry a Greek Cypriot. We said that wouldn’t be possible as she was still married to a Russian, so she then applied for political asylum,” she said.
The civil registry and migration director said instructions to deport the couple were issued in August last year but that both of them disappeared. The husband was found in December and hours before he was due to be deported he secured a court order postponing the decision until his appeal, she said.
“They appealed and lost three times and in August 2006 the Supreme Court ruled the deportation should go ahead. His wife was not deported on humanitarian grounds. She then disappeared, was found on Tuesday and deported with her children today [yesterday],” Shakalli said.
Speaking on CyBC radio yesterday, the couple’s lawyer Christos Clerides criticised the authorities for their immigration policy and accused them of undertaking a “cleansing campaign” since the beginning of the year to try and get rid of any third country nationals eligible to apply for long term residency status under EU law.
The law came into force across the bloc in January, but Cyprus was given an extension until the end of the year. Lawyers and immigrant support groups believe the delay is an effort to get rid of as many third country nationals before the law is passed.
Under the new law, any third country national residing legally in a country for a period of five years is eligible for EU resident status allowing the holder to enjoy virtually the same rights as citizens.
Commenting on the incident from Tampere, Finland where he is attending a meeting for EU Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, Justice Minister Sophocles Sophocleous said the police were not to blame.
“The civil registry and migration officer issues the instructions and the police follows them through,” he said.
