By Martin Hellicar
LIMASSOL police yesterday vowed to look into allegations of racist behaviour by one of their officers.
According to an eyewitness to the alleged incident last Saturday, a uniformed officer knocked an African Cypriot man off his scooter on a busy street, all because the black man had objected to the traffic policeman yelling at him for not wearing a helmet.
“On Saturday, August 12, I witnessed one of the worst cases of racism in Cyprus…especially when you consider that this racism was being exercised by the police force itself,” the witness said in a letter to the Cyprus Mail.
We forwarded a copy of the letter, with its detailed account of the alleged incident, to police.
Limassol police chief, Charalambos Koulentis, yesterday promised the complaint would be given due attention: “I will get one of my sergeants to investigate the matter immediately. What more can I say?” Koulentis told the Mail. The Limassol police chief declined to comment further on the matter, saying it would have to be looked into first.
The incident occurred at around 10 pm last Saturday night, in the busy Kanika area of Limassol town, the eyewitness said.
“I was driving by when I saw the policeman shouting at two African men on a scooter because they were not wearing helmets,” he states in his letter to the Mail.
The officer’s behaviour towards the two black men was apparently in stark contrast to the way he was dealing with a white Cypriot also caught without his helmet. “At the time, the police man was politely and quietly booking a young Cypriot youth for not wearing a helmet,” the eyewitness said. One of the African men shouted back at the officer: “Talk to me quietly and if you want to talk to me then come over here. I am nothing less because I am black – stop being racist,” the eyewitness stated.
The officer’s response was violent, the witness claimed. “The policeman did go to him, but did not talk to him but simply pushed him off his scooter like an animal… the policeman handcuffed the man and called for help from his radio.”
The response from Limassol police headquarters was apparently overwhelming: “A police Mercedes arrived and arrested the African man. Then six special forces (MMAD) cars arrived on the scene – as if it was a real battlefield.”
The witness said he managed to talk to the other African man left behind after his friend was carted off. He said he and his arrested friend had Cypriot fathers and had just completed their National Guard service.
The witness supplied registration numbers for the motorbike the traffic policeman was riding and for the police car that picked up the African Cypriot. Both numbers were forwarded to police.
