Project title:

 

Addressing and Encountering discriminatory, xenophobic and/or racist treatment of migrants by the police, the prisons system and the judiciary

 

Aim

 

The project has four aims :

 

1.     To carry out an extensive research with regard to the assumption and the extent of a discriminatory, xenophobic and/or racist treatment of migrants by the police, the prisons system and the judiciary in Cyprus.

2.     To set up a monitoring mechanism for addressing the problems of discrimination and racism encountered by migrants[1] and practiced by the police, the prisons system and the judiciary.

 

3.     To set up support structures for assisting migrant victims of discrimination and racism in their dealings with the police, the prisons system and the courts and to claim their rights.

 

4.     To raise public awareness about the discriminatory and racist practices of the police, the prisons system and the judiciary against migrants and to influence public policy and action in these areas.

 

 

Specification of the content of the project

 

Specific areas

 

The project will address the following areas:

 

o      The conduct of the police towards migrants

o      The conditions pertaining to the imprisonment of migrants

o      The conduct of the judiciary towards migrants through the judicial proceedings and the Courts decisions.

 

Content of the project

 

What specific problem/question does your project address?

 

1.     It is widely reported and documented[2] that there are serious violations of the human rights of migrants by the police and the prisons system as a result of institutional discrimination and racism. These violations include the following:

 

a.     Refusal by the police to receive complaints by migrants against their employers concerning especially grave violations of their human rights, such as abuse, rape, sexual harassment etc. Very often, migrants seeking to report these violations end up being arrested and deported. As a result, migrants are very reluctant to report such violations to the police.

 

b.     Refusal by the police to allow asylum seekers to submit their applications when they first present themselves to a police station. This means that by the time asylum seekers are allowed to submit officially their applications, they are considered to be ‘illegal’ (undocumented). Often, this refusal is accompanied by verbal and/or physical and psychological abuse.

 

c.     The classification of undocumented migrants as criminals makes them liable to arrest and, subsequently to imprisonment and deportation. The present Aliens and Immigration Law classifies illegal entry and residence in Cyprus as a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment of up to twelve months or to a fine of up to one thousand pounds or to both such sentences. Undocumented migrants, often including asylum seekers that have been denied access to the asylum procedures by the police, end up in prison after conviction by the Court and subsequently they are liable to deportation; therefore their detention continues with an order of the Migration Officer until their deportation is effected.

 

d.     It has been repeatedly recorded that Cyprus faces serious problems with overpopulation in the prisons. The majority of prisoners are migrants that have been convicted for minor offences such as illegal entry or stay or migrants under detention pending their deportation. Often women with minor children or pregnant women end up in prison for such minor offences.

e.     The prison system does not, to a large extent, differentiate between minor offences and grave offences and as a result migrants convicted for minor offences may end up serving their time together with serious criminals. Any separation of convicted persons according to the severity of the offence is applied as a matter of practice rather than as a matter of law. KISA has at times received information about migrants, moved to the high security prisons with very serious criminals as a penalty for refusing to obey orders from prison officers, with serious complaints about the treatment migrants receive from the convicted criminals themselves, often entailing criminal offences with the tolerance of prison authorities.

 

f.      No research has been known to take place with regard to the prisons system up to now, particularly with regard to migrants.

 

 

2.     The judicial system in Cyprus has never been under scrutiny. The judiciary as an independent authority is considered to be intact of any criticism and as a result no research has ever been carried out as to possible institutional racism or discrimination with regard to judicial proceedings or Courts decisions. The main issues of concern with regard to judicial proceedings and Court decisions are the following:

 

a.     According to the law, legal aid is only available to criminal cases, to human rights violation cases with regard only to the provisions of the Constitution and to a limited number of international human rights Conventions ratified by Cyprus, excluding the Geneva Convention on Refugees and family law cases, before the criminal, civil and family courts.

 

b.     The majority of migration and asylum cases involve administrative or labour law and may be brought before the Supreme Court, acting as the only administrative Court, or the Labour Courts. It is thus clear that the majority of migration and asylum cases do not benefit from legal aid.

 

c.     This results in poor representation of asylum seekers and migrants before the Courts and sometimes with no representation at all as well as with the exploitation of asylum seekers and migrants from lawyers charging them very high fees in order to the take on a case.

 

d.     No research has ever been known to be conducted with regard to the impact the above mentioned reality has to the effective judicial protection migrants and asylum seekers should have in a country governed by the rule of law.

 

e.     No research has ever been know to be done with regard to the Courts decisions when these involve migrants and more particularly with regard to the requirements of a fair trial, the penalties imposed by the Courts and the level of the penalties compared to cases involving Cypriot citizens, in order to assess the level of institutional racism and discrimination, if any, entailed in the administration of justice.

 

 

 

Objectives of the project (your answer to the problem/question mentioned above)

 

1.     The project will seek to launch a public debate among all interested parties (the police, the prisons authorities, other competent government agencies and services, the judiciary, the Ombudswoman, migrant organisations, KISA and other concerned NGOs) on the conduct of the police, the prisons system and the judiciary in relation to migrants. The objective of the dialogue is the assessment of the xenophobic, discriminatory and racist treatment of migrants and the formulation of agreed proposals for eliminating all such violations.

 

2.     Within the context of the above mentioned public debate , the project will seek to launch an extensive research programme covering all aspects of the treatment of migrants from the police, the prison system and the judiciary in order to have measurable results as to the situation prevailing and the extent of the problem in Cyprus with regard to this issue.

 

3.     In parallel to the above dialogue, the project aims to establish an NGO-run centre to monitor the proposals for changing the situation in these areas. To ensure that the monitoring centre will be able to carry out its task effectively, it is necessary to devise a system of giving full access of police, prison and courts records concerning cases of migrants.

 

4.     The project will set up a support structure for assisting migrant victims of discrimination and racism in their dealings with the police, the prisons system and the courts, which will provide information about their rights, procedures, free legal aid and other relevant issues, in their own languages. The Migrant Support Centres already run by KISA will be strengthened to include these services.

 

5.     In order to raise public awareness about the discriminatory and racist practices of the police, the prisons system and the judiciary against migrants, in addition to the public dialogue outlined above, the project includes publication of information leaflets, which will be disseminated widely to the public.

 

 

KISA – Project working group