Renewed call for truth commission

NON-GOVERNMENTAL organisation Truth Now, yesterday called on the state to ratify the Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, which Cyprus signed in 2007
The group, marking International Day of the Disappeared, also said it would keep up the pressure on the government for the creation of a truth commission in Cyprus.
“It is indeed a paradox that the Republic of Cyprus, while it has signed the Convention in 2007, it has nonetheless not proceeded with the ratification of same, despite all the indications that it would do so,” Truth Now said.
It called the creation of a truth commission urgent. “Forty or 50 years is too long. Many parents have already passed away. Everyone should contribute towards the ascertainment of the fate of all the missing persons in Cyprus,” it said. “The families have the right to truth and the state has an obligation to reveal it.”
It did welcome the exhumation of remains from graves at the Makedonitissa cemetery where a number of dead had been buried indiscriminately after the 1974 and were being identified.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.