Ombudswoman demands halt to deportation plans

THE Ombudswoman has requested that immigration halt its plans to deport a Serbian mother of two whom they detained on Tuesday and submit the woman’s files to the Ombudswoman’s office for examination.

Jasmina Drazic was separated from her 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter on Tuesday by authorities because she had overstayed her visa after they refused to renew it.

Last year after immigration refused to extend the visa of Jasmina Drazic and her husband Zoran Drazic, whom they ended up deporting last September, their lawyer asked the Ombudswoman to investigate the case. The Ombudswoman then requested the Drazic files from immigration, but immigration never sent them.

Yesterday, peers of Drazic’s children demonstrated outside the Paphos District office, where they delivered a letter to the District Officer. The letter, addressed to President Papadopoulos, asks that Drazic be released from detention and allowed to remain in Cyprus with her children.

Drazic has been living in Cyprus since 1999. An EU-directive requires that people living in European countries for over five years must be granted long-term residency rights.

Drazic’s lawyer, Yiannakis Erotokritou, said that a deportation of Jasmina Drazic would constitute a “serious human rights violation.”

Erotokritou yesterday phoned the Ombudswoman, who was abroad, to inform her that immigration had detained Drazic. The Ombudswoman then contacted immigration and told them that they should not proceed on deportation plans until they had delivered Drazic’s files to her office for investigation.

Ironically, the police had detained Serbian Drazic on the same day that the Cyprus president and Serbia president met at the Presidential. There appears to be no end to the irony, as yesterday was international women’s day.

“It’s women’s day, and all these people have been handing out flowers, and yet there is a mother in jail right now,” family friend Andre Farmakin said.

“She’s not a criminal. She’s done all the procedures legally and yet no one cares.”

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.