AN IRANIAN family with two young children was deported on Wednesday without even being allowed to return to their home to collect personal effects, according to yesterday’s Politis.
The paper said Malihen and Valiounah Nazarian, aged 28 and 32, were arrested at the weekend for overstaying their entry visa. They were detained until the evening flight to Iran on Wednesday.
The two little boys, aged two and five, were taken into foster care for three days, wearing just the clothes they were wearing on the day they were taken. Their mother was barred from comforting them. Limassol welfare department hastily bought them tracksuits before reuniting them with their parents on the way to the airport.
Officials refused to let them return to their home and pack their personal belongings. The father pleaded to be allowed to call a friend to say goodbye. That was his only privilege.
The parents cried all the way from Limassol to Larnaca airport, Politis said.
The Chairman of the Immigrant Support Group (ISAG), Doros Polycarpou, yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that police had said that all Iranians were to be deported when their visas expired, because of suspicions that they might be involved in drug trafficking.
The various authorities involved in the case yesterday refused to comment. Limassol welfare refused to comment about the case. They refused to either confirm or deny the Politis report.
The police said yesterday they knew nothing of the case. Police are not obliged to inform anyone of their decision to deport immigrants – a stance that Polycarpou says is unacceptable.
He claimed police deportation policies contravened the January 2000 Refugee Act that prohibits deportation of immigrants who have pending asylum claims.
But the UNHCR said yesterday that the family in question had not applied for asylum status.
Politis said the family had claimed their lives were in danger in Iran.
The Deputy Ambassador of Iran, Behzad Azarsa, yesterday told Cyprus Mail that the embassy was investigating the details of the case, after the media had notified them, to determine whether human rights had indeed been violated.
He said problems with illegal immigrants from Iran had arisen in the past.
“We do, however, have small numbers of Iranians who wish to work here legally, with the consent of their Cypriot employers. We always stress that they should observe the laws and regulations of Cyprus. And so far, so good,” he said.
The UNHCR spent Tuesday and Wednesday working frantically to prevent the deportation of five other Iranians who had applied for political asylum at the end of January, after a breakdown of communication with the Immigration Department. In the end, they managed to save one family and two other adults from deportation.
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.
