THE 16-day protest by asylum seekers ended peacefully yesterday after they reached an agreement with the government.
The immigrants had been demanding the right to work without limitations, government housing, access to benefits where the right to work is refused, medical and pharmaceutical care, an end to police mistreatment, an end to deportations to countries which persecute them, and genuine examinations by an independent body of each asylum application.
The protest was being kept up by a core group up of Kurdish asylum seekers, some of whom went on hunger strike in the latter stages of the protest.
An announcement issued yesterday by the immigrant support group KISA read: “After 16 days, the strong measures which were taken by the Kurdish asylum seekers have paid off and they are now expected to return to their communities.
“After five hours of discussions, an agreement was finally reached with the government. The talks were mediated by Cristina Planas who is the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Cyprus.”
According to KISA, the government has agreed to grant the immigrants certified documents, such as Pink Slips for residence, Health Cards and Alien Registration Cards.
The immigrants will also be entitled to housing and benefit, while a number of safeguards will be introduced to prevent their exploitation in agricultural jobs they are entitled to seek. These include enforcement of collective agreements in the sector (a minimum net monthly wage of £365 plus social security for a 38-hour week).
But KISA spokesman Doros Polycarpou said last night the government was refusing to yield on the issue of employment outside agriculture, at least for the first year after an application was submitted. There was a possibility that they would open up other sectors for asylum seekers whose claims took longer than a year to be processed, but this was still under discussion, he said.
The agreement also includes the release of a Pakistani immigrant arrested during the protests.
The government also agreed to hold a meeting between a representative of the Kurds and Interior Minister Andreas Christou within the next 15 days to discuss the broader problems facing asylum seekers.
It was also agreed that the United Nations and KISA would monitor the welfare of asylum seekers.
Last Tuesday, an Amnesty International report on Cyprus said foreign nationals in Cyprus were being unlawfully expelled, arbitrarily detained and ill-treated in police custody.
Amnesty said experts from the European Union Network of Independent Experts in Fundamental Human Rights had expressed concern in January that foreign nationals arriving in Cyprus in 2004 had been deported without being offered access to the asylum process.
Other cases, also highlighted by the Ombudswoman, speak of detained asylum seekers being “mocked” by police officers. There have also been cases of racist taunting of foreigners on the island.
