A woman asylum seeker is held in the detention center of Mennoyia for more than 6 months now, despite the fact that according to the law, as an asylum seeker she should not be in detention since there was no possibility for her deportation until her asylum application is examined. Yesterday her asylum application was rejected by the Refugee Reviewing Authority and was informed that she can appeal to the Supreme Court against this decision within 75 days.
The law provides that the final decision for the examination of her asylum application is taken by the court. Thus, she still remains an asylum seeker and it is not perceived that the examination of her asylum application has been completed without a court decision.
However, today she was informed that her deportation from the Republic of Cyprus is scheduled for tomorrow morning, despite the fact that the time limit for her right to appeal to the Supreme Court has not come to an end as foreseen in the law. The asylum seeker herself has officially declared that she intends to proceed with making an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Once again, the Republic of Cyprus is deporting an asylum seeker without allowing her the actual right of appealing and violating the relevant law. It is worth noting that the Republic of Cyprus has already been sentenced four times by the European Court of Human Rights for this matter. It is also worth noting that the Attorney General of the Republic, in recent statements he assured that no person that is going through the asylum procedure will be deported without giving him the chance of exercising all of his/her rights, including the appeal to the Supreme Court.
We call on the Ministry of Interior to intervene immediately by dropping the detention and deportation orders that have been issued against the aforementioned woman and to give her access to all of the stages of the asylum procedure as foreseen by the law. Concurrently, we call on the Minister of Interior to review the detention and deportation policies of asylum seekers, ensuring them access to all of the asylum procedure’s stages as foreseen in the refugee law and without the risk of them being deported in non-safe destinations or deprivation of their freedom.
mpolydorou@crmd.moi.gov.cy
This is the email of the only person that can revoke the orders of deportation for this woman (Mr. Makis Polydorou, Acting director of the Civil Registry and Migration Department). Let’s try to convince him to respect the law and the rights of this woman by sending him emails requesting the cancellation of the detention and deportation orders.
