The only “protest” I recall where police went to manage traffic was in Limassol. When a group of locals (?) dressed in black clothing and balaclavas went to “protest” by beating up any foreigner they encountered on the street.
There, the police truly were managing traffic. The hooded men walked past them, and the officers simply pointed them in the right direction. With their hands (note this), they gave them traffic signals.
At the protest held on Thursday evening in Nicosia, following Israel’s interception of the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, it’s an absolute farce for the Police to claim that the role of officers at the protest site involved managing vehicular traffic. This is what a Police spokesperson told CyBC. “There was policing for security reasons,” he said, “at some point the protesters entered the road, blocking one lane, the Police blocked the second lane as well, for the safety of the protesters themselves and others using the road.”
It’s yet another heroic feat by our police. They managed traffic with pepper spray and the standard Security Forces accessories, the well-known truncheons. For the protesters’ safety! They beat them with truncheons to prevent them from being hit by cars. They know best; we’re the ones who can’t understand what danger the protesters faced when they’d blocked one lane themselves and the police blocked the second lane. That is, no cars were passing through. What safety of protesters were the police concerned about when there were no passing vehicles, no counter-protesters, no opposing factions?
What the protesters themselves describe, and they’re more credible than the Police because many videos of the scenes circulated, is appalling. Because it shows a Police force we wanted to believe no longer existed. A Police from another era. First, they directed the protesters to enter the road, when they had no such intention. Second, the police closed the entire road. Third, the protesters chanted slogans for about half an hour and were preparing to leave when they saw ten patrol cars arrive, from which 30 police officers emerged with helmets, equipment, truncheons and shields, forming up in a line facing the protesters.
What followed is what always follows in such demonstrations when the police remain brutes, no matter how much training they receive, no matter how much modernisation takes place. The protesters also formed a line and shouted “Freedom for Palestine” and the police dispersed them with truncheons. Right when they would have left without anything happening at all. As if they went to the scene with the sole purpose of giving the protesters a lesson in authoritarianism and conformity to the police state. But do we have a police state? They should tell us so we know. Because we nearly convinced ourselves those days had passed.
Given that the protesters would have chanted their slogans and departed, the only visible explanation for the police behaviour is that they were demonstrating their subservience to Israel. On behalf of their leadership, naturally. It’s quite possible a letter arrived from the Israeli Minister of Diaspora and ministers and chiefs outdid themselves to prove that the Cypriot Government doesn’t share the views of protesters shouting “freedom for Palestine.”
If any explanation must be given for what happened, it must come from the political leadership. Because the Police announced that it “fully respects the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression,” but this is like addressing idiots. What does the Government say? Does it respect citizens’ right to protest as long as they don’t upset the Minister of Diaspora?
