Hateful Cyprus Police Breaks the leg of a refugee in Nicosia
A large number of bystanders in Nicosia witnessed a police using excessive force against Sylvain Somé, from the Ivory Coast. They took photos, videos and complained to the local anti-racism NGO ‘Kisa'as an officer broke his leg. From his hospital bed, the victim described it as a “racist attack ".Continue to watch the Video
In mid-afternoon on Wednesday November 27th, three police officers stopped an Ivorian on an active road in the Greek Cypriot capital's historic centre to ask for his identity documents. They checked his documents within their electronic system, and found he resides in Cyprus lawfully. Klitos Papastylianou, who works at Kisa, told FRANCE 24 “racial profiling in Cyprus is illegal, but the police do it most of the time. We get at least one complaint about in a week.”
The video below was published by Kisa, detailed with Greek subtitles where in actuality the audio is poor. The video shows two officers and one African witness the officer breaking Sylvain Somé' s leg. Around one minute to the footage, an officer exclaims: “you broke his leg”, while one other shouts at his colleague “stop, are you an A*#S?
I asked the police officers: “why have you stopped me like this?” One officer replied, the main one who later broke my leg:
“this really is Cyprus! If you don't want it, you can return to your country, where you are able to teach the police just how to behave.” I told him he hadn't answered my question, and that I knew he had a job to accomplish but that I had a right to speak freely. I didn't want to find myself handcuffed and taken fully to the police station, I recently desired to ask a question. The officer warned if I kept talking he'd arrest me, I replied saying I hadn't done anything to be arrested for.
That's when he threw me to the bottom, and broke my leg. And then he started saying he'd take me to the hospital in his car, and he was attempting to handcuff me. I wasn't going to his car with a broken leg, I needed to hold back for an ambulance! I didn't trust him, he may have taken me to a detention centre and done worse things to me. I waited for an ambulance, which took me to Nicosia General Hospital.
I was stopped such as a criminal. Imagine if I'd been with my daughter, who's only a little girl. The authorities here are racist. It's in no way the very first time I've been stopped in the street: it's happened to me a large number of times. The authorities here stop Africans, look for something wrong, and then fine us. That's what they do.
When FRANCE 24 spoke to Sylvain Somé two days aftr the incident, he was in hospital waiting to know if he will need an operation.
According to Kisa, the local police department initially refused to simply accept Sylvain Somé' s complaint against the police officer who broke his leg. After Kisa intervened, the department agreed for the complaint but Sylvain Somé has still been faced with resisting arrest. It is not even clear if the officer will be investigated. France 24 has contacted the local and national police to obtain aa reaction to the case. We will publish their response if and whenever we receive one.
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