Reports indicate that police forces are on “high alert” during the Easter holidays. This heightened state is not due to the holidays themselves, but to concurrent activities attributed to “youth delinquency” during the Easter period.
Without delving deeply into this issue, one might question what “high alert” entails for officers performing their assigned duties. According to news reports, police members are patrolling and conducting “coordinated checks at establishments and open spaces” whilst issuing “warnings to many young individuals”. In essence, they are attempting to prevent the large fires that young people traditionally light at Easter, ostensibly to “burn Judas”, but in reality to demonstrate their group’s prowess in the informal competition for the biggest bonfire. Simultaneously, there is the ongoing issue of firecrackers, which the police have consistently failed to suppress over the years.
I wish to recall the Chief’s directive to police officers, revealed by my esteemed colleague Fanis Makrides in Phileleftheros several days ago (I use the term “revealed” because it was neither announced nor published on any police website—it remains an internal, effectively secret directive). In this directive, officers are instructed to carry personal weaponry and equipment—specifically firearms, spray and batons—which they are encouraged to use “when necessary”. What constitutes necessity?
A “serious form of attack” against them when they risk injury. However, a “common assault” is also considered serious, including pushing, spitting at, or slapping an officer, particularly when occurring publicly before an audience, or when someone “obstructs the execution of duties”—in other words, resists arrest.
The Chief is thus officially legitimising the perennial excuse used by officers when they cannot substantiate allegations against someone. A notable example is the arrest of Oz Karahan and George Tattis during the 28th October parade in Nicosia, when they attempted to display a banner… in support of the Republic of Cyprus! The directive’s purported aim is to encourage officers because “incidents of attacks against them have increased”—a rather arbitrary conclusion.
What is particularly striking, however, is the complete absence of any reference to citizen rights and safety as the central focus of police actions. Predictably, there is no mention of arbitrary behaviour or abuse of power—misconduct that has been reported numerous times, which the Chief should have explicitly condemned as unacceptable. There is merely a single reference to the obligation of “impeccable behaviour” and to previous provisions regarding “proportionate force” and “non-disproportionate use” of weapons.
Here is a critical question: Will a young officer—among those on “high alert”—who learns that the Chief is ordering them to use their weapons, focus on the “detail” of proportionate force? How will they judge precisely what constitutes proportionality? Won’t they be left with the impression that they have every right to draw a pistol, for example, on a youngster lighting bonfires because the youth spat at them, pushed them, or attempted to flee to avoid arrest?
Indeed, the Chief seems to believe that officers must make arrests at all costs, in every case bringing the detained individual before the court as quickly as possible and refusing any request for postponement. And if they are reported to the Independent Authority for the Investigation of Allegations and Complaints Against the Police for excessive force, for instance, he explains what they must do to receive protection from the police legal department.
He does not advise on how to avoid being in the unpleasant position of being reported—unpleasant for the officers themselves, for citizens, and for the reputation of the police force. Unsurprisingly, their union representatives have welcomed the ability to invoke the Chief’s directive when accused of violence.
The Police Chief, like many others in positions of authority, overlooks that his primary duty is to protect citizens and respect their rights. The word “service”, which defines what the police and every public entity should be, says it all.
Unfortunately, most consider that citizens should serve them, rather than the other way around.
