THE SIX Iranian asylum seekers who had been camped out on top of Nicosia central prisons’ water tank for five days returned to their cells yesterday evening.
In a surprise, move the six men decided to come down from where they had been camping out since last Friday after they met with Acting Justice Minister Christodoulos Pashardis. They also met with the deputy police chief and Nicosia police chief at around 4pm.
Authorities had repeatedly tried and failed since Friday to talk the Iranians down. At 7.20pm yesterday they climbed down from the detention centre’s roof of their own volition.
Under heavy police escort, four of the six were taken to Nicosia general hospital’s Accident and Emergency department to be checked out as a precautionary measure after spending the first 60 hours without food or water. Reports from the medical facility said the foursome appeared to be in good health and were walking around unaided.
Pashardis said the government had not in any way given in to the six’s demands and reiterated that it would not succumb to threats or blackmail.
The men, who have destroyed their travel documents and are refusing to go back to Iran, have demanded to be allowed to stay in Cyprus with their families. They were also protesting against their illegal and lengthy detention in Block 10.
The authorities have given them assurances that their files will be re-examined despite the fact that their asylum applications had already been turned down and they were in detention pending their deportation. The delay in executing their deportation was due to the fact that they had destroyed their papers.
This is the second time the authorities have promised to review their cases in a month. Failure to get back to them with an answer prompted Friday’s protest.
A sergeant and three constables also face disciplinary action over the incident. Police chief Iacovos Papacostas said prison police guards had been given written and verbal instructions to be particularly vigilant regarding this particular group of immigrants for fear they would do something like this.
Last month the same men undertook exactly the same protest, forcing the government into promising to review their cases, a promise subsequently broken by the government.
Papacostas said there should have been six officers on duty on Friday and yet two officers had been allowed to take time off due to overtime.
“Yes they are understaffed but in this case there is reason to believe they should be held accountable… [They] handled the matter superficially and didn’t take into account the written and verbal warnings,” he said.
Yesterday, Ombudswoman Eliana Nicolaou said the issue of immigrants’ detention was a “social problem that needs to be solved”.
“It’s not just about these six,” she said.
Her sentiments were shared by House president and AKEL leader Demetris Christofias, who earlier in the day had called on the government to show its democratic face and to release the men. He said the government’s treatment of illegal immigrants was giving the island a bad name internationally.
Backtracking on his own party’s four previous years of support for the Papadopoulos government, Christofias said they should be set free, given free housing, their movements monitored and told to report to a police station pending the examination of their cases.
He said: “I know they have destroyed their travel documents. That is a reality we have to deal with. But do we leave them on the water tower and just tell them the state won’t accept to be threatened or blackmailed? The state should show it is a democratic state that can and knows how to make decisions.”
He said keeping people locked up for years was not a solution.
“Not just regarding these six, but in general,” he said.
Commenting on Christofias’ statements, President Tassos Papadopoulos asked to imagine what would happen if all of the 8,000 asylum seekers in Cyprus mimicked the actions of the six protesters.
Meanwhile Interior Minister Christos Patsalides accused the six of having been ill-advised by certain individuals during the course of their protest.
“[I do not know] who is giving them guidance or talking to them on their mobiles but the answer is some people are clearly giving them advice,” he said yesterday.
Patsalides said although he lacked evidence about precisely who was behind the instructions being given to the men because he could not monitor their phones, he had some indication of who their advisers were following conversations with the six themselves.
“Whether they are lawyers or whatever movement or people that want to advise them, I repeat they are doing so in the wrong way,” Patsalides said.
On Tuesday night, the Interior Minister implicated lawyers and certain immigrant movements on national television. His statements caused uproar from the lawyers and prompted a denial from the Bar Association, reports said.
The police chief added that the large number of immigrants in detention centres was a huge problem because they were permanently full. He said this overcrowding sometimes led to the release of people detained for criminal offences.
This was why instructions had been given to speed up works to create an area to hold detainees pending their deportation, Papacostas added.
Finally according to CyBC, viewers had called in to the state channel complaining about the amount of coverage the protest had received from networks and asked why the government should forced to bow down to the immigrants’ demands.
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