CYPRIOT detention centres are no better than those found in third world countries. In fact they are often worse.
“You’re put in jail without reason and they throw away the key,” is the single most repeated comment that detainees make.
“You are tortured for days, months, years, depending on how long you are inside. In other countries at least they openly hang you. Here they hang you every day. You are always waiting to be punished. The punishment doesn’t come but you wait.”
When they are released, the nightmare doesn’t end: hot flushes, palpitations and panic attacks are only a few of the many symptoms.
“I am always looking over my shoulder. If I see a policeman I’m afraid he will come and catch me and put me back in jail. It happened once, it could happen again. They told me when I was released that they know my face, they know who I am and if they want, they can put a bullet in my head,” a former detainee, now living in Syria, said.
The 35-year-old said one year on from his release, he still couldn’t talk about his time in custody.
“I can’t think of my future. I can’t think of God. There is no God. For me I left my mind there. It is still in prison. For one year I saw no sunlight. Now I have problems with my eyes,” he said.
Reports of taunting, beatings and sexual harassment are rife.
Officers are also said to proposition women detainees, reducing them to tears and filling them with fears for their safety.
Once out in the real world, they are afraid to speak for fear of retaliation.
“The police here are above the law. They can do what they want. Even the court is nothing. Not even the media can do anything. Who is to say when you have an ‘accident’ what really happened? Who will protect you then? Who will stop you from being killed?”
Asylum seekers are the most frequently held detainees with many not even knowing why they are in custody.
“They told me nothing. They tricked me and arrested me,” he said.
Some are held until police verify an asylum seeker’s identity. A year later and they are still in custody.
One man said he had only been allowed to contact his family once in nine months as he was shunted from one holding cell to another.
On the day of his release he was taunted that he would be sent back to his country where he would face religious persecution.
“In the end they laughed in my face and said I was released. They just wanted to push me. They liked to do that,” he said.
A young man in his early 20s said he’d often felt envious of dogs.
“I’d see a dog and wish that was me. I was treated worse than an animal. I was subhuman. I was nothing. I had no human rights,” he said.
Detainees have also repeatedly reported clandestine deportations in the middle of the night. The ‘victims’ are allegedly drugged and put on a plane back home. Some asylum seekers are said to have disappeared without a trace. Their families do not even know where they are.
Police have repeatedly denied the accusations.
“They used to enjoy pressurising us. They know what it’s like to be in custody for so long. They know what it does to a man. I have mental exhaustion. I cried when I left,” a 41-year-old former detainee said.
Many forget they are free and still behave as if they are incarcerated.
One said he still kept his phone hidden in his underwear and another said he forgot to cook as he was used to being served meals.
“I can’t stay at home for many hours at a time. I just cannot. I need to get out,” the man in Syria said.
His brother, who was also in custody, added: “I can no longer read a book. I had a few books with me and read them over and over again. Now I cannot read another book. My head gets tired and I get headaches.”
Asked how it had felt to be free again they all said: “To this day the first thing I think when I wake up is that I’m in prison.”
One said he had to dull the pain with alcohol to get to sleep at night. Another said he lay awake in bed till 4am before sleep washed over him. The most any said they slept was four or five hours.
“Every night I have the same nightmare. An octopus is wrapping itself around me and squeezing my legs, my arms and my neck. Then it bites me with poison. I wake up wet. And all I can see is red. I’ve had this dream every day for two years,” a 36-year-old former Block 10 detainee said.
‘It is the immigrants who are above the law’
INTERIOR Minister Permanent Secretary Lazaros Savvides said the ministry was aware of the problems regarding police holding cells from reports submitted by the Justice Ministry and outside organisations such as the Council of Europe.
“But the competent authority to run and manage the police holding cells lies with the Justice Ministry,” he said.
Aliens and Immigration police refused to comment on the accusations.
Nevertheless they are not the police responsible for the holding cells. Apparently the jurisdiction of holding cells lies under the authority of that district’s police chief.
Therefore all Nicosia holding cells are under the Nicosia police chief’s authority, all Limassol holding cells come under Limassol’s police chief and so on.
Nevertheless a police officer, who wished to remain unnamed, refuted the accusations.
“As if police would do such a thing. It is the immigrants who are above the law, not police. We can’t even lay a finger on them. Police are too scared to even touch anyone,” he said.
As for drug induced deportations in the middle of the night he said: “That’s simply ridiculous. What are we doctors? There is no way any police officer was involved in something like that.”
Police chief Iacovos Papacostas categorically denied every single accusation made by the immigrants.
“Frequent inspections are carried out by different committees including European Human Rights watchdog, the UNHCR, local NGO’s like KISA (an immigrant support group) and we have never heard such a complaint of drug-induced deportations,” he said.
Papacostas also denied accusations that some immigrants had not seen the light of day for a year.
“There are strict regulations that they go out into the yard every day to exercise and get fresh air and then go back to their cells. In Limassol and in Block 10 at the Central Prisons they are not even kept in cells. They are out in the yard, in common areas and can watch TV and read their newspapers. They are not locked up like animals,” he said.
Papacostas said what was true was that immigrants were often held far too long.
“We have some immigrants in detention for over two years. But this is not down to us. This is the Interior Ministry and the migration department. We have told them to release them because it’s a shame to have these people held for so long as illegal immirants,” he said.
“But as far as all the other complaints go, I reject them categorically,” he concluded.
The Justice Minister was unavailable for comment.
