Enclaved People Of The Karpas

EDM number 27 in 2006-07, proposed by Andrew Dismore on 15/11/2006.

That this House expresses its extreme concern over the conditions of the enclaved Greek Cypriots living in the Turkish-occupied Karpas Peninsula in northern Cyprus; notes that only 230, mostly elderly, remain of the 12,000 Greek Cypriots who stayed on after the Turkish invasion in 1974; is alarmed by the breaches of almost every article of the European Convention on Human Rights experienced by the enclaved, including harassment by organs of the Turkish state and Turkish settlers, lack of legal and policing protection from the local administration, interference in education, with teachers forced to make round trips of up to three hours each way to and from Nicosia and pages abitrarily ripped from school books, the prevention of enclaved Greek Cypriots from working other than in agriculture, and the prevention of married couples living together; notes the fears of Greek Cypriots that prevents them from talking to outsiders because of police questioning and arbitrary arrest as a consequence; and therefore urges the UK Government, the Council of Europe, the European Union and the United Nations to take up the case of these oppressed people with the government of Turkey, so that the European Convention on Human Rights and Copenhagen criteria can be seen to be observed and practised in Cyprus.

This motion has been signed by a total of 28 MPs.