Ypsonas youths on racist rampage
By Anna Hassapi

A GANG of 30 youths went on a rampage in Ypsonas on Sunday night, verbally and physically abusing foreigners living in the village, as well as vandalising their properties.

The racist attack took place at 9.30pm, when the gang, equipped with sticks, stones and iron bars, proceeded to descend upon several houses, where they knew foreigners were living.

According to locals, the attack was a reprisal for an incident that took place on Saturday evening, when a group of foreigners living in Ypsonas assaulted an underage Cypriot boy.

“I am certain this was not an organised, racism-motivated incident,” Aristos Aristidou, Ypsonas community leader, told the Cyprus Mail.

“The incident took place because some local Cypriot boys wanted revenge on a group of foreigners who had attacked one of their friends on Saturday night. They decided to go find the group who assaulted their friend in order to confront them. On their way, however, they attacked any foreigner who came their way, as they did not know what their friend’s attackers looked like,” Aristeidou said.

Police confirmed that those targeted on Sunday were not involved in the incident the previous day and did not provoke the attack in any way.

At the first home, the youths attacked a 37-year-old, hitting him with their various weapons all over his body.

Three more people were assaulted at a second home, while nobody was home at a third, with the gang instead damaging the property.

Of the four victims, two are British while one is Romanian and the other Bulgarian.

All four were taken to hospital. They were later released after receiving treatment.

None of their injuries are thought to be too serious.

“Yesterday morning we found sticks and even skewers in the streets. We are concerned on how far the violence could have escalated. We fear of any reprisals from those who were attacked,” Aristidou said.

A police spokeswoman yesterday told the Mail that the youths were all under-age and said that arrests would be forthcoming.

Eyewitnesses said they heard the youths shouting racist insults at their targets, such as, “foreigners – get out of Ypsonas.”

Ypsonas’ community leader, however, denies there is tension between locals and foreigners in Ypsonas. “It is not about racism; there has not been any other incident of this sort in the past. Ypsonas is home to people of various nationalities and the locals have embraced them. There was a reason these young people attacked on Sunday. These are the kind of people who, if you hurt them, they hurt you,” Aristidou said.

With additional reporting by Leo Leonidou



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008

You are laughing Turkkan?
Well, no need to say anything, you got your answers in the other forum.

...and I guess you missed this:
"...when a group of foreigners living in Ypsonas assaulted an underage Cypriot boy"

I will copy/paste my answer from the other forum.

'Lol you guys are quite unbeleivable, the above story is tantamount to me saying my friend got beaten up by a pakistani in east london, so i get a bunch of my friends (30 in this case!)and because i dont know which pakistani exactly beat my friend up i go from house to house in east london and break down every pakistani families houses and either assault them or damage their property. That this was a racist attack should be plainly obvious to everyone.

Parliament condemns racist rampage
By Jacqueline Theodoulou

THE CHAIRMAN of the House Human Rights Committee yesterday strongly condemned the racist rampage that took place in Ypsonas on Sunday night.

“As a Committee we condemn the incidents of stone-throwing at houses and beating foreigners that live in our country,” said Sophocles Fyttis of DIKO.

“If these foreigners had done something it should have been reported to the police and not have citizens, youths or elderly people taking the law into their own hands,” he added.

As a state, said Fyttis, “we must respect the laws that regard the protection of human rights, whether they are foreigners or not”.

He said some foreigners arrived in Cyprus legally and others illegally, but they all had human rights and did not deserve to come under attack.

“For this reason, we are calling on the police and state authorities to locate the high risk areas – if we can call them that – and exercise better policing,” Fyttis said.

He said this incident should concern society, “because it is not the first time we have heard about incidents against foreigners and we don’t believe that this ‘isolated incident’ was indeed isolated.”

Fyttis added that this would lead to more youths believing it was OK to attack or stone foreigners, “because unfortunately, even thought there is not much racism in the country, there is a lot of xenophobia”.

Ionas Nicolaou of DISY said he hoped the Ypsonas incidents were isolated and did not become subject to generalisations “that do not promote our culture”.

He said he wasn’t aware of a general problem between Cypriots and foreigners living in Cyprus.

“There may be, and there are problems with the presence of foreigners in Cyprus,” said Nicolaou. “We are noticing some offences, even crimes that are being committed mainly by immigrants such as many traffic violations that are fatally dangerous, break-ins and robberies and many more.”



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008

turkkan babeaa u speak about racism???

u make me laugh