On April 27, ten demonstrators, among them an IWW CYROC officer, were arrested and detained for almost 48 hours, for peacefully protesting outside Limassol’s Criminal Investigation Department. During their arrest and detention, they experienced serious verbal and physical abuse.
Few words regarding the purpose of the protest: On April 10, members of the police raided an apartment in Limassol after receiving a tip regarding the presence of undocumented immigrants. According to the police, they knocked on the door and were allowed inside, where they found a number of undocumented migrants, two of which attempted to escape jumping from the window. The 5-storey fall killed 19-year-old Anisur Rahman, while the other man, Fahad, suffered severe injuries, leading to his hospitalisation. Both were workers from Bangladesh. However, a series of revelations quickly disputed the police report. The raid was conducted without a warrant, and photos of the apartment’s door show that it was clearly breached., Moreover, a testimony by one of the arrested migrants, K. S. , revealed that their flat was attacked in the early hours of April 10 by a large number of men in civilian clothes (their claims that they were policemen could not be verified by the migrants), who physically and verbally assaulted them, breaking into every locked door in the house, including the door of the room where Anisur Rahman was sleeping. According to a statement by the NGO KISA, upon waking up from the violent entry of the police, possibly abruptly and in a state of panic, Anisur opened the window of his bedroom on the 5 floor of the apartment building and jumped out, resulting in his immediate death when he hit the ground. The NGO underlines that all occupants are presently under arrest, including the hospitalized man, which is a violation of the provisions of the legislation regarding the detention of irregular immigrants as a last resort and after a warning for voluntary departure; the arrested migrants, the sole eye witnesses of the incident other than the police, were not allowed to see a lawyer, and were, according to K. S., forced to sign voluntary returns requests in order to be deported as soon as possible. It is safe to assume that this raid was not an isolated incident, as just a few days later, the head of the hotel owners association in Pathos accused the police for conducting gangster-style raids in hotels, in broad daylight and in front of tourists. Specifically, in one case 6-7 police cars arrived suddenly at a hotel, 30 policemen in uniform and brandishing weapons entered the establishment and started interrogating every worker who looked like a foreigner, resulting to a woman getting so scared that she fainted. The insolence of the police demonstrated in these cases, reveals that they are following orders issued by their political superiors, i.e. the Ministry of Justice and the President of the Republic, who are proving willing to even go against the interests of a powerful employers group (hotel owners) and tarnish the tourist image of Cyprus right before summer, just to secure a few more votes from far-right voters in the coming European and Municipal elections; voters who are not satisfied with the current government breaking records in deportations, and are hungry for literal blood…
Before presenting the statement of the 10 detainees, it is important to note the following incidents. On the day of the death of Anisur Rahma, 6 CID police officers in plainclothes entered a coffee-bar in Limassol, where a publicly announced meeting was to take place regarding the event, in order to identify who was organising it and what their intentions were. During the first protest march against the murder in Limassol on April 13, the police was present in full force, accompanied by a police water canon tank, as well as armed policemen in plainclothes. Finally, a protest organised by migrant communities in Nicosia, despite having a permit to march to the House of Parliament, was blocked from doing so by the police. This events bring us to April 27; here is the co-statement by the 10 detainees regarding their arrest and the events that followed:
‘‘On April 27th, a Saturday, a protest against high rents took place at 5:00 in the afternoon. Following the conclusion of the protest, as announced online by the Assembly against the State Murder of Anis Rahman, a gathering would follow at the Limassol CID with two main objectives. Firstly, to demand justice for the death of 19-year-old Anis Rahman and the injury of Fahad, workers from Bangladesh, during a police operation by the Immigration and Aliens Service.
The second goal of the gathering was to demand from Limassol CID to disclose the fate of the remaining cohabitants of Anis and Fahad, who were held there in the previous days and are key witnesses to the death.
It should be noted that various interventions were made at the Limassol CID by official bodies and lawyers, seeking information about the 7 Bangladeshis, but received no response.
At 19:25, 20 people gathered outside the Limassol CID, on the opposite sidewalk, shouting slogans against police arbitrariness, the police state, and the role of repression in society. At the same time, demands were announced publicly, outside the police station.
Within minutes, a large number of police officers, both uniformed and plainclothed, emerged from the main entrance of the CID, while from the right side of the gathering, a unit of the riot police intervened. Their attack was immediate, both verbal and physical.
The riot police officers wore helmets and used batons, while the other police officers resorted to physical violence and made arrests. The result was ten arrests with individuals being beaten and thrown to the ground, while the remaining participants were chased through the alleys of Limassol.
Conditions in detention at the CID and the holding cells
Subsequently, the ten detainees were found in an office within the Limassol CID. There, they faced threats and verbal abuse from the police, while we, in turn, protested vigorously against the injustice of the arrest. At some point, one of the police officers claimed to have found a small amount of cannabis in the bag of one of the detainees, and his reaction was to hit both the detainee with the bag and the detainee who was handcuffed to him.
Immediately afterwards, there were intense protests from all the detainees due to the violence inflicted. The police tried to reinforce an atmosphere of intimidation against us by attempting to silence us in order to make us accept the violence we had endured.
Following this, we were all separated into various offices. The officer who assaulted the detainees identified himself as “the toughest cop in Limassol,” claiming that “everyone fears him” and “he’ll destroy us one by one when he catches us outside.”
This particular officer personally visited some of the detainees in the offices we were assigned to. There, he initiated a scenario of loud voices and threats directed at the detainees. On one hand, he tried to turn one against the other, claiming that “in other offices, they’re ratting each other out,” and “you’ll realize you’re all just pawns.”
Then, he started claiming that we said something about his mother, using a sexist slur quite offensive to her, with threats to bury us, lock us up, calling us LGBTQ+ individuals, Muslims, and so on.
All of us responded that, at least concerning these specific detainees, we do not speak from a moral or ethical standpoint against anyone’s mother or in sexist terms in general. He continued his theatrics with more yelling and threats, and later his entire narrative was included in the prosecution’s case file.
We mention this to demonstrate the tactics of intimidation and psychological manipulation by specific officers.
After contacting our lawyers quite late, we gave statements.
The charges being investigated against us are: 1) Conspiracy to commit a crime 2) Disturbance 3) Disquietness 4) Assault on a police officer 5) Public Insult 6) Disturbance of Peace 7) Attempted Escape During Arrest 8) Resistance to Arrest. Depending on the detainee, various charges were attributed (ranging from four to eight).
Subsequently, we were divided into various detention centers.
Two of the arrested women were taken to the Paphos detention centers, one pregnant detainee was isolated in the Kofinou detention center, while the fourth was in a detention center in Stroumbi.
In Paphos, the arrested women were found in detention centers separated by gender. They were not allowed yard time, their cells were in terrible condition, and they managed to obtain cleaning materials only after continuous complaints. They also faced verbal attacks from male detainees because the women’s and men’s detention centers had some contact, solely the responsibility of the police.
One arrested woman went to the hospital with visible bruises on her arms and pelvis and was diagnosed, after a CT scan, with a neck injury. They refused to provide her with a written report of her condition, citing “no arrest warrant.”
The pregnant woman in the hospital had an ultrasound where it was found that the embryo was in good health, and she was given a written report. Finally, one of the four, when asking for the toilet, was not allowed to close the door, and female police officers supervised her while she was in the toilet.
As for the male detainees, they were taken to the Limassol CID detention center. (Note by IWW CYROC: In a report published just a few days ago, the Commissioner for Administration and Human Rights stated that if the conditions in the Limassol Police Department detention cells remain as they are today, they cannot be considered compatible with international standards for detaining any prisoner)
There, one of the most dangerous events of the entire situation possibly occurred. Some police officers on duty lied to existing detainees at the CID that some of us had injured police officers who are friends and relatives of the detainees and help them have a better life in detention.
The officers urged the detainees to “deal with us” as retaliation for our behaviour. Such an event, given the psychological state of the detainees and the violent conditions imposed on them by the state, could have led to serious injuries to the arrested of the gathering, which could have even led to intensive care.
Ultimately, due to various factors, the violence exercised by a detainee on an arrested person of the gathering that same night was of much lower intensity.
The next day, the arrested of the gathering spoke with the detainees within the CID detention centers and collectively realized that the whole incident was connected to lies told by specific police officers to them.
The aim of these officers was for some of us to be severely injured, with the responsibility falling on the detainees rather than the police themselves, in order to retaliate for our defiance and to show their role in society again. Their gamble failed because solidarity and cooperation among the detainees prevailed.
We disclose the entire incident, not to scare anyone, but to show how ruthless they are, what kind of network exists, and how if anything happens in the future to people participating in demonstrations inside detention centers, there are specific police officers and responsible officials who bear responsibility.
In Court
In court the next day, a police officer came to testify on behalf of the police, even though he wasn’t a witness to the events. His purpose was to secure two more days of detention for all the detainees.
Defense lawyers demonstrated within the courtroom how contrived the case was, how much ulterior motive existed on the part of the police, and how unsubstantial it was to request further detention for events that occurred before their eyes, concerning a protest gathering.
In the end, the lawyers explained that any further detention would intensify the police state regime in Cypriot society.
Unfortunately, the judge decided not to reach a decision on the same day but the next, effectively prolonging our detention.
Here, we want to point out that although the trial was public, none of the thirty or so gathered supporters were allowed to enter the courtroom and observe.
After the trial, we returned to the detention centres. What changed for the detainees was that along with the two held in Paphos, the one in Stroumpi was also transferred, while the pregnant detainee continued to be isolated from the others in the Kofinou detention centre, where for some reason the female guards did not respond to her basic requests, such as giving her the clothes brought by her people.
The next day, we found ourselves back in court, where the judge decided to release us, adopting much of the reasoning presented by the defense lawyers.
It’s worth noting that when we were released, we returned to the detention centres to collect our personal belongings.
Some of us found that our phones had been tampered with during detention. While the phones were sealed when they were surrendered, they were returned unlocked and with full access (without the need for a passcode).
We want to deeply thank all our comrades and every person who rushed to provide solidarity in every possible way, who publicized the events, issued statements, as well as the parents who stood by their children and didn’t believe the official police narrative.
Secondly, we want to clarify that at this stage, and after all this fiasco, we remain SUSPECTS and not defendants. It is up to the police and the Ministry of Justice, if they wish, to pursue the case and fully expose it.
It would be good, in fact, for them to publicly apologize and compensate for the damages, such as the broken phone of one detainee and the flight ticket of two detainees. Regarding the unjust deprivation of freedom, physical harm, and psychological intimidation caused, let them consider what they would do if people from their friendly and family environment were in our situation.
Finally, we believe it has been made clear once again that the last thing we need for protection in our protests is the police. We hope they won’t come back to a protest/gathering/event after this incident, using the excuse that they came to protect us. Perhaps we need to find ways to protect ourselves from them.
The whole affair is not isolated. There is a thread connecting the suppression of the protests of Os Dame, the covering up of the murder of Thanasis Nikolaou, police violence and persecution faced daily by migrant workers claiming their rights, and the youths in neighbourhoods under the pretext of partisanship, drug use, or youthful exuberance, the concealment of abuse and rape, femicides, and the criminal trafficking that the Cyprus police are aware of and the involvement of specific police officers, the increase in police presence in city centres and surveillance cameras, the relentless increase in incarcerated individuals even for minor fines, and the ever-growing consumption of public funds by taxpayers to increase and strengthen the repressive police-prison-control mechanism.
The police state goes hand in hand with increased investments and the takeover of cities by foreign and local plutocrats.
We want to emphasize that despite all attempts at silencing and intimidation, we will not stop our struggles against the iron cage in which they want to confine our society and the lower social strata.
SOLIDARITY IS THE WEAPON OF SOCIETY.’’
The events of the past month reported in this bulletin clearly demonstrate the vile and despicable face of the Cypriot government and its police force towards migrant workers, political activists and prisoners. We the Regional Organising Committee of the IWW in Cyprus express our sincere and heartfelt solidarity to everyone fighting in this common struggle against injustice.
We call upon our Fellow Workers across the globe to express their solidarity to the formerly detained protestors, and their abhorrence to the murderous tactics of the Cypriot Police!
Furthermore, we would like to take this opportunity to announce our full support for the 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition Demonstrations, a series of protests and prison strikes against the legalized prison slavery and for the dismantling of the prison industrial slave complex, organised by the Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the IWW and other inside collectives in the US, scheduled to occur this December (6/12-13/12).
Solidarity Forever!
An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
