North’s bar association decries ‘indefensible’ arrests of Greek Cypriots

Cyprus Turkish bar association head Hasan Esendagli on Friday said the arrest of five Greek Cypriots in the north on suspicion of espionage is “not something we, as legal professionals, can defend”.

He said that in arresting the five Greek Cypriots last month and holding them in custody since then, the Turkish Cypriot authorities had “responded to lawlessness with lawlessness and to extremism with extremism”.

In this, he was referring to the arrests made by the Republic of Cyprus of people accused of selling Greek Cypriot-owned land in the north.

“We have repeatedly stated on every platform that there is no justification, no law, and no humanity in resorting to criminal sanctions targeting individual Turkish Cypriots or those legally doing business in the TRNC regarding the property issue,” he said.

Now, however, with the arrest of five Greek Cypriots in the north, “the mirror has been turned back on us”.

“Considering the nature of the crimes of trespassing, breaching the police, and privacy violations, which have been levelled at the Greek Cypriot couple who appeared at the Trikomo district court yesterday, the decision to keep these people in custody pre-trial appears disproportionate and harsh,” he said.

He said the Cyprus Turkish bar association has “repeatedly warned that the arrests which have begun in southern Cyprus predicate subsequent dangerous steps on both sides of the island”, but that he could not defend the actions of the Turkish Cypriot authorities in arresting the five Greek Cypriots.

“The judicial processes carried out by the Greek Cypriot leadership and judiciary in cooperation and harmony, targeting and harming individuals, will ultimately be condemned in international law. We must avoid giving the impression that we are walking along the same path,” he said.

He added that the reciprocal arrests have created “a danger of this reaching a level which will threaten the legal security and freedom of movement of everyone living in Cyprus”.

“The ones who will suffer the greatest harm from this will, once again, be the Turkish Cypriots,” he said.

Earlier, the Cyprus bar association released a statement of its own condemning the arrest of the five Greek Cypriots “in the strongest terms”, describing the incident as “illegal and arbitrary”.

It said the arrests had been “carried out with ulterior motives and the clear aim of intimidation”.

“The baseless charges against them constitute a clear attempt to criminalise their presence and the assertion of their rights, violating every concept of justice and equality,” it said.

It added that the arrests “constitute a blatant violation of human rights”, and of “the dignity of these people, who have already experienced the uprooting and loss of their ancestral homes”.

“The use of fabricated charges and the deprivation of their liberty are tools of political pressure, which run contrary to international conventions,” it said.

“We express our full solidarity with those arrested and their families and demand their immediate release. We declare that this incident will be reported to the European Union and to every competent international organisation to prevent the continuation of these illegal practices.”

It added that “this act cannot go unnoticed”, as the arrests are “art of a systematic policy of intimidation aimed at suppressing the memory and legal rights” of people who were displaced in 1974.

“We declare our determination to continue the fight for justice, for the defence of human rights, and for the restoration of legality in our homeland,” it said.