“Hate crime” warning from the European Council to the Greek Cypriot Administration

The European Council made a call to the Greek Cypriot Administration to try to prevent the hate crimes towards the immigrants, Turkish Cypriots and Romany people in the country.

In the report issued yesterday, the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) made a call to the Greek Cypriot Administration to give education to the security forces on the issue of human rights to prevent increasing hate crimes in the country. In the report, it was stressed that racism is increasing in South Cyprus and the police forces are not intervening enough. It was also stated that training for the police forces should be according to the human rights norms, ethnic discrimination in the daily life should be abandoned and a multilingual and transparent community should be provided.

In the report it is also emphasized that South Cyprus has been facing an upsurge in racially motivated violence and racist hate crime, directed against migrants and refugees as well as the Turkish Cypriots and Roman people.

The Committee expressed concern over reports that most victims of racially motivated offences hesitate to turn to the police, because they lack trust in the officers’ capacity or willingness to investigate the case properly, or are afraid that such involvement could exacerbate their situation.