EU citizens complain of racism in Cypus

OMBUDSWOMAN Eliana Nicolaou said yesterday she was investigating around 120 complaints of racism from Cypriots and foreigners filed over the past six months.

Nicolaou was speaking at a conference titled “Racism in the Media” to mark World Anti-Racism Day where she announced that her office would be taking on full responsibility for racism issues in the future.

Her new jurisdiction also gives her the power to investigate issues regarding gender equality in the workplace from both the public and the private sectors, including health care and education.
Since new anti-racism legislation was passed last May, Nicolaou said she had received 120 or so complaints, the majority from EU citizens living in Cyprus who felt they had not been accorded equal rights resulting from the island’s accession to the bloc.

She said her new duties would also include research, collect statistics and monitor international developments and see how Cyprus is applying EU legislation. Nicolaou’s office will also be able to issue rulings and penalise offenders.

Nicolaou said an enlightenment campaign against racism and xenophobia was also being launched with several events lined up over the coming months.

Asked by reporters about the case of a Serbian family that was deported after 11 years in Cyprus, Nicolaou said she had given in her report to the Immigration Department recommending the deportation be reversed.

She said the woman was a nurse, and her husband a highly-skilled typographer, that their son had been born in Cyprus and as was integrated in school, and spoke only Greek. Neither did the family constitute a financial burden on society, she said.
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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.