THE PHENOMENON of flagrantly deviating from normal parking etiquette amongst the island’s drivers is normally considered an offence that should be handled by the police.
When however, it is the police committing the offence, then the normal protocol of administering a parking ticket assumes slightly more complicated dimensions.
This was only one of the problems outlined by Green Party spokesman George Perdikis, whose party has released a photograph showing a police vehicle clearly and languidly intruding on a space reserved for disabled drivers in the Latsia Municipality parking lot.
The Green Party, which regularly campaigns for improved rights and respect for disabled people in Cyprus, has highlighted the issue of illegal parking on numerous occasions.
Perdikis outlined how this is not just a problem of parking, but is rather “an indication of a component of our culture that needs to be changed”.
In other words, this incident is just another example of the blasé attitude many people in society retain towards concerns that exist even the slightest fraction outside of their immediate attention.
When asked whether he believed that the specific driver of the police car should be punished as any driver would have been, without regard to his status as an officer of the law, he replied: “What, the police are going to fine themselves? This is not an issue of a single driver, who just so happens to be a policeman in a police car parking in an illegal way. It is a problem of the police force in general, and an attitude that pervades our society as a whole.
The Green Party is highlighting these problems because they are there and need to be brought to the public’s attention, because disabled people face difficulties on a daily basis.”
The fact that police can be seen as both ostentatiously ignoring these difficulties and concurrently exacerbating them is not the image that a modern police force of the European Union will want to promote.
When the police were contacted to ask how they were going to approach the situation, a spokesperson said: “This kind of incident has occurred before, and in that situation the specific driver of the vehicle was identified and fined as if he was driving any car. With regards to this specific situation, I cannot comment at this time as to what specific action will be taken as an investigation will need to take place first.”
