extremism
Cyprus: Demonstration against racism after violence against migrants
Around 350 masked men in Cyprus destroyed migrant shops and attacked the people themselves. photo
© Kostas Pikoulas/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
Injured people, shops in ruins: right-wing extremists rage against migrants. Observers speak of “pogrom-like conditions”. The day after, hundreds of Cypriots took to the streets against racism.
According to the police, the demonstration was peaceful, as reported by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (RIK). However, the situation remains tense at the moment. The police are present throughout the city center of Limassol, as eyewitnesses to the German Press Agency said.
On Friday evening there were serious riots in the city after a demonstration against migrants. Hundreds of masked men damaged migrant shops and attacked the people themselves. They threw incendiary devices and stones and set garbage cans on fire. They chanted racist slogans. The police used tear gas and a water cannon, five people were injured and 13 were arrested. According to media reports, the masked people were right-wing extremists.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulidis was outraged: he was ashamed of the incidents, he said at the beginning of a crisis meeting. The Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Justice, civil protection, the police and the fire brigade also attended the meeting.
“I am ashamed of what happened yesterday,” said Christodoulidis the day before. “Even those who are responsible should be ashamed.” By that he meant the organizers of the demonstration as well as the police and the responsible ministers, whom he reproached: “It cannot be that the state cannot protect its citizens and foreigners.”
According to the Cypriot Interior Ministry, refugees and migrants now make up six percent of the population. Measured by population, the small island republic also has by far the highest number of asylum applications per year in the EU. The refugee camps are overcrowded, and ghettos have formed in many places where people live in poverty. These conditions serve as a reason for the riots for the ultra-right.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 after a Greek coup and Turkish military intervention. The Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU since 2004. As long as there is no solution to the division, EU law and regulations only apply to the southern part of the island. Around 900,000 people live there and around 300,000 in the north. In recent years, Cypriot governments have repeatedly complained that migrants from Turkey travel legally to northern Cyprus and from there cross the green border to southern Cyprus and thus to the EU.