Video footage released by migrant support group KISA shows police officers apparently trying to subdue an Ivorian man and breaking his leg in the process at the centre of the capital, Nicosia.
KISA said that a police patrol with three police MMAD officers randomly stopped three African men, all black, between Eleftheria square and the Ohi roundabout in the heart of Nicosia on Wednesday, a shortly after 1pm
.
.
Some viewers may find this footage disturbing.
All men presented papers showing they were in Cyprus legally.
One of them accused police of racial profiling, choosing to stop them for no reason because of their skin colour, KISA said.
The video shows the man fall on the ground as a police officer tries to handcuff him.
The man is screaming and his leg appears broken. “It’s come apart,” the police officer said as he was handcuffing him.
“I ask you a simple question. Why because I’m black that you control me?” the Ivorian man told police.
KISA said the man has been living in Cyprus for seven years and is married to a Cypriot with whom he has a four-year-old child.
Off camera, another man said in English: “Let the world [see] what is happening. This [is] what blacks go through here.”
“Can you see? This is someone’s leg. It’s broken.”
The independent authority for the investigation of allegations and complaints against the police have confirmed they have received an official complaint and will be appointing a criminal investigator.
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou said earlier on Thursday the case would be investigated. “I said as soon as I took over [in February] that I don’t want to see people getting beat up by police,” Nicolaou said. He said that with the exception of “one or two isolated cases,” police in general had not used violence, even during“combative protests” outside the presidential palace and parliament. “There have been one or two isolated cases but they were investigated and there were even consequences for the police office in one of them.”
The Ivorian man is currently in Nicosia General Hospital with a broken leg, KISA said.
The video footage shows a police officer telling someone over the phone the man was “giving police trouble [and] shouting”.
source CyprusMail
No comments:
Post a Comment