ANTI-POLICE brutality campaigners have launched a petition to reform the Cyprus police’s disciplinary procedure and increase transparency, following the return to duty of police officers who were filmed violently assaulting two innocent students five years ago.
The widely publicised and brutal assault sparked public outrage, which was heightened by the Nicosia criminal court’s paltry suspended sentences for the guilty officers in April.
In response to the lax sentencing, a group of activists are now calling for greater transparency and external accountability in police disciplinary matters with an online petition, which, as of yesterday, had received 216 signatures.
The petition slams the police disciplinary board’s “provocative and lenient disciplinary action against officers found guilty of abuse of students Yannos Nikolalou and Mark Papakyriacou on April 6 (2011)” and it blames the failure to reign in violent policemen on “loose organisational structures and a lack of transparency and accountability.”
It proposes five solutions:
Firstly it calls for the introduction of new police leadership, accountable to an external authority.
Secondly it calls for the exclusion of current or former police officers in disciplinary boards – or at least not 100 per cent police representation.
Thirdly, the petition calls for police training to be put in the hands of an independent authority. Fourthly, a reorganisation of appeals process and finally, the immediate suspension of the officers found guilty of the assault.
Petition co-creator and country manager of the Cyprus programme of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, Christalla Yakinthou, said: “Our group started six weeks ago in reaction to the decision against the officers, which was a was an insult to the concept of justice.”
In order for justice to occur, Yakinthou said, there police needs a degree of external accountability, which is not the case in Cyprus: “It is not logical to have 100 per cent of the disciplinary board made up of police officers. Even if it is an impartial body it does not give the impression of impartiality.”
Yakinthou suggested that the external authority could be in the form of an ombudsman or a non-police tribunal panel, as found in other countries.
Asked about the petition, one of the two victims, Yiannos Nicolaou said yesterday: “I hope that (the police) will figure out that these things cannot go unpunished, but to be honest I’m not optimistic.”
Asked why, he said: “We got beaten up – they broke both our hands and our cheekbones, and we were made to feel we must accept it. We have not seen justice and so many years have passed and nothing has been done.”
To read the petition, visit: http://www.aitiseis.com/cypruspolicesystemreform
