AS WAS EXPECTED the police came under fire from the politicians and the media for the Wednesday night raid in Ayios Theodoros. We heard the traditional accusation that the police had used ‘excessive force’, while one DISY deputy opted for more poetic hyperbole, claiming that officers acted as if they were conducting a terror raid against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A TV presenter gave a brief lecture against the police on the Thursday evening news, claiming their actions were out of proportion to the crime being investigated and pointed out that the force kept messing up the more serious cases. For dramatic effect he noted that police were nowhere to be found when a bank robbery was staged in Limassol on Thursday.
For Cyprus’ politicians and media, the police can never do anything right. We do not know if members of the public have a similarly negative view of the force even though they would be influenced by politicians and journalists. It is true that the force has messed up cases on many occasions, but does this mean that it give up on trying to enforce the law, as the TV presenter implied? By this logic the police should stop enforcing the law until they crack a big case.
The bird-poachers of Ayios Theodoros and other villages could be left free to pursue this lucrative illegal activity until the police earn the right in the eyes of journalists and politicians, to enforce the law. This is the view of our opinion formers who have no problem siding with law-breakers if they are not gently treated by the police.
Some 90 policemen raided two villages on Wednesday night as part of a clampdown on the roaring ambelopoulia trade – trapping, killing and selling this endangered species of bird is a criminal offence. Police had search warrants for houses and restaurants. In Chirokitia they did their job without a problem, confiscated evidence and left. In Ayios Theodoros however, the residents were more hostile – they blocked roads with wooden crates so that police cars could not leave and tried to stop officers from removing them. Scuffles ensued and police used their clubs to impose law and order.
It is obvious they would not have used force if the people did not try to prevent them from doing their job. Should they have sat and taken the abuse until the hostile villagers decided to remove the crates that were blocking the roads? The fact is that the use of force had been provoked and police were perfectly within their rights to try to restore law and order. If children and women were obstructing them from doing so they had to move them and if there was resistance, they had to use some force.
It was a perfectly reasonable reaction. But there is such bias against the police nobody acknowledged the fact that people’s actions made the use of force necessary. In Chirokitia, where people behaved in a civilised way and allowed the police to do their job, no force was used. This says it all.
