The Cyprus issue is a flagrant case of continued mass violations of basic human rights and freedoms by Turkey, in breach of the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter and major international instruments in the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Numerous Resolutions of the U.N., including those of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Commission on Human Rights, the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have been adopted over these 24 years, concerning all aspects of violations of human rights in Cyprus. Turkey has failed to comply with any of them.

Furthermore, the Commission of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, an impartial judicial institution, having examined the four recourses of the Cyprus Government against Turkey for multiple violations of the European Convention of Human Rights (Applications 6780/74, 6950/75, 8007/77 and 25781/1994), in its reports concluded that Turkey is guilty of gross violations of human rights in Cyprus from 1974 onwards, especially of the human rights protected by the articles Ii 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights and by the articles No 1 and 2 of the 1st Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights.

It should be noted that the ECHR stated that “having effective overall control over northern Cyprus, its (i.e.: Turkey's) responsibility cannot be confined to the acts of its own soldiers or officials in northern Cyprus but must also be engaged by virtue of the acts of the local administration which survives by virtue of Turkish military and other support” (Cyprus vs. Turkey, Application No. 25781/1994).

Furthermore, the European Commission, in its Progress Report for the year 2002, which was published on October 9, refers extensively to the massive violations of human rights in the occupied territories.

Forcible eviction and displacement of persons from their homes and land
The nearly 200.000 Greek Cypriots (40 % of the total number of Greek Cypriots in 1974) who were forcibly expelled from their homes by the Turkish invading forces in 1974 are still being prevented from returning there and are refugees in their own country. They continue to be arbitrarily deprived of their homes and property in the occupied area, which are gradually being illegally distributed by the Denktash regime to other persons, such as members of the Turkish occupation army and settlers from mainland Turkey.

The U.N., in Resolutions 361(1974) of the Security Council and 3395(1975) of the General Assembly, have called for urgent measures to facilitate the voluntary return of all refugees to their homes in safety. Twenty-seven years have elapsed since then and Turkey refuses to implement these Resolutions.

On the 18th of December 1996, the European Court of Human Rights, after examining an application against Turkey by Mrs. T. Loizidou, a refugee from Kyrenia (a town in the occupied territories), ruled that Mrs. Loizidou remains the legal owner of her property in Kyrenia and that Turkey has been carrying out a continuing violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights by not allowing her access to her property.

On July 28th, 1998, the ECHR adjudged to Mrs. Loizidou a compensation of 458.000 Cyprus pounds, to be paid by the Turkish Government till October 28th, 1998. Nonetheless, the Turkish Government still refuses to comply with the aforementioned decision, despite the fact that the Ministers' Committee (Permanent Representatives Committee), as the monitoring organ of the ECHR 's decisions, called several times, through Interim Decisions and letters from its Presidents, upon Turkey to comply with the ECHR 's decisions.

Given the fact that Turkey insists on referring to the alleged “political aspects of the case”, in order to avoid paying due compensation, further hearings will take place within the PRC, in order to decide on the follow-up which will be given to this decision.

Expulsion of the enclaved
Out of 20.000 Greek Cypriots who chose in 1974 to stay in their ancestral homes in the area occupied by Turkey, only about 450 have managed to remain and live in the Karpasia peninsula at the eastern corner of Cyprus. This decrease is the result of a sustained campaign of harassment, discrimination, oppression and outright expulsions by the occupation forces and of the very drastic deterioration of the living conditions of the enclaved. The purpose of this policy has been to force the Greek Cypriots to leave their lands in the occupied part of the island and make room for settlers imported from Turkey.

Notwithstanding the commitments which the Turkish side agreed upon in Vienna, in August 1975 (3rd Vienna Agreement), to ensure that the enclaved “are free to stay and that they will be given every help to lead a normal life”, the regime in the occupied areas has applied racist and inhuman policies against them. The report on the U.N. operations in Cyprus (December 1995) describes in detail the methods of oppression used against the enclaved: restrictions on movement within the occupied territories, restrictions on visits to the free areas, restrictions on visits by relatives, no local teaching of the Greek language after the primary level, severe and often prohibitive restrictions upon the travel of enclaved students to the free areas to be further educated there, primitive medical facilities, no access to Greek Cypriot doctors in the occupied territories, closure of many churches, lack of priests, lack of telephone facilities beyond those in the local “police” stations, deprivation of property, intimidation by the illegal regime's security forces, restrictions on UNFICYP 's freedom to carry out humanitarian actions etc. The report also points out that a review carried out by UNFICYP confirmed that the communities of Greek Cypriots and Maronites “were the objects of very severe restrictions, which curtailed the exercise of many basic freedoms and had the effect of ensuring that, inexorably, with the passage of time, they would cease to exist in the northern part of the island”.

On April 10th, 1997, the European Parliament adopted Resolution B4 - 0286/97, stating that it considers inadmissible the conditions which the occupation regime had set in order to allow a delegation of Members of the European Parliament to visit the enclaved. The Resolution also condemned the “serious and continued violations of the Human Rights and basic freedoms of the enclaved, perpetrated by the illegal occupation regime, as well as the intransigence of that regime”.

On December 20th, 1996, Mr. Andreas Barsony, Rapporteur of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly described in his first report on Cyprus the measures used against the enclaved, stating that “there can be no doubt that these measures amount to demographic cleansing”.

Turkey 's policy of systematic persecution of the enclaved Greek Cypriots still goes on, in spite of the small number of Greek-Cypriots still living there (450).

New bureaucratic impediments to prevent visits of the enclaved by their children who live in the free part of Cyprus are implemented. Most recently, the illegal authorities have prevented the return to the occupied territories of Mrs. Heleni Fokas, a teacher of the children of the enclaved, who had temporarily returned to the free part of Cyprus to undergo hospitalization.

Systematic plundering of the Cypriot cultural heritage in the occupied territories
The island's cultural heritage, which has existed for thousands of years and is part of the common heritage of mankind, is being systematically and deliberately destroyed in the occupied areas. Greek Orthodox churches continue to be converted into mosques, vandalized or turned into entertainment centers while priceless treasures and works of art are smuggled out of the country or destroyed, in defiance of the relevant Resolutions and calls of European and International Organizations (such as the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, UNESCO, etc.) to stop the destruction and cooperate for the protection of the ancient and religious monuments of Cyprus.

Among recent examples of this policy, are:

• the attempt to sell to foreigners the Church of Chrysotrimythiotissa,
• the destruction of the paintings of the Convent of Christ Antiphonetes near the village of Kalograia in the Pentadaktylos mountain and the complete destruction of the historic Armenian Convent of Saint Makarios, also in the Pentadaktylos,
• the looting and desecration of the Church of the Apostle Andreas near Kyrenia, the Church of the Holy Virgin in Pano Zodia, the Church of Saints Sergios and Paraskevi near the ruins of ancient Salamis, the Church of the Holy Virgin (Melandrina) near the villages of Ayios Amvrosios and Kalogrea, the Church of Saint Anastasia in Lapithos, the Church of Saint Irene in Karavas and the Church of Saint George, also in Karavas,
• the conversion of the Convent of the Holy Virgin Eleousa (in occupied Karpasia) into a restaurant and the conversion of the Church of the Archangel Michael in Kyrenia into a museum,
• the conversion into mosques of the Church of Saint George in the village of Prastio in the Famagusta area, the Church of Saint Paraskevi in Lapithos, the Church of the Holy Virgin in Karavas, the Church of Saint Amvrosios in the village of Ayios Amvrosios, the Church of the Holy Virgin Chrysopolitissa in Kyrenia and the Church of Saint George in Kyrenia.
• Illegal archeological works in Kyrenia, Famagusta, Salamina and in the occupied peninsula of Karpasia
• Destruction of churches or conversion into mosques, hospitals, barns or cinemas
• Illegal exportation and sale of priceless mosaics, frescos and icons, such as the ones from the Church of Kanakaria, the Church of St Themonianos, the Convent of Christ Antiphonetes and 12 more convents.

Also, as the turkish cypriot newspaper “Ortam” wrote on 5.8.1997, the byzantine church of the Holy Virgin, located between the villages of Acheritou and Prastio in the area of Famagusta, was completely looted.

Over 500 churches have been destroyed in an effort to give the occupied areas a turkish character and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (UNFICYP) is pursuing the matter with the Turkish side, so far unsuccessfully.

One should also place within this context of wholesale looting, the arrest by German authorities, in October 1997, of the Turkish citizen Hikmet Aydin Dikmen, in whose possession they found mosaics and icons which came from the looting of the Convent of Christ Antiphonetes and of the church of the Holy Virgin of Kanakaria.

Besides outright looting, the occupation authorities have allowed many archaeological sites and religious monuments to be gradually eroded and destroyed through neglect, such as the ruins of ancient Enkomi, the monastery of the Apostle Andreas in Karpasia etc.

In a further effort to alter the historic character of those places, the names of villages, towns and places which had been used for centuries, are being arbitrarily changed to Turkish ones, in contravention of International Law and U.N. Resolutions on the standardization of geographical names.

The Republic of Cyprus has made considerable efforts in order to achieve the return of the stolen cultural items back to their place of origin, many of which have already been successful. For example, the US Menil Foundation recently undertook the obligation to return to their place of origin the frescos of the Church of St Themonianos. Moreover, the icon of Holy Mary the Christ-holder and the icon of Archangel Michael were repatriated from London and Netherlands, where they were found, respectively, to Kyrenia 's Metropolitan Church. Furthermore, concerning the case of the icons that were stolen from the Convent of Christ Antiphonetes, the Church of Cyprus, in coordination with the Government of Cyprus, has decided to file an appeal against the 1999 judgement of the Dutch Court, which turned down the repatriation request, submitted by the Cypriot Government.

Following a request stated by the Government of Cyprus, within the legal framework of the UNESCO Convention for the protection of cultural heritage (1970), US have banned the import of Byzantine ecclesiastic and holy items, which do not bear an export license issued by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

Apart from the above-mentioned Conventions, there are also a number of international Conventions protecting cultural heritage, which unfortunately have not been respected by Turkey or the turkish-cypriot regime:

1. the 4th Hague Convention of 1907 concerning the laws and customs of land war (a. 56), which protects, in case of military occupation, items that are used for religious purposes and objects of art. Most of the articles of this Convention incorporate customary law, which is binding Turkey as well.
2. the 1954 Hague Convention concerning the protection of cultural goods in case of armed conflict, according to which the principle of protecting cultural goods has a very wide field of application (both in case of armed attack as in the case of military occupation of the territory of another state). What is important, is that both the Republic of Cyprus and Turkey are contracting parties to this Convention.
3. the Optional Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention, according to which the contracting states undertake the obligation to hinder the exportation of cultural goods out of the occupied territory and the obligation to return the stolen cultural goods that are found in its territory to the state, from which they were stolen. What is important, is that both the Republic of Cyprus and Turkey are contracting parties to this Convention
4. the 1970 UNESCO Convention concerning the means of prohibition and obstruction of illegal importation, exportation and ownership transfer on cultural goods, according to which all importation, exportation and ownership transfer of stolen cultural items is forbidden, even in time of peace. Turkey is also a contracting party to this Convention.

In the case of the church of Kanakaria, it must be stated that the United States Court of Appeals for the seventh circuit (Chicago) upheld on October 24th, 1990, an earlier decision of the district Court for the southern district of Indiana and ruled that mosaics stolen from that church should be returned to their rightful owners, namely the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus.

Colonization of the occupied territories
According to Turkish-Cypriot sources, nearly 80.000 settlers from Turkey have been transplanted illegally to the occupied part of Cyprus since 1974 and given properties usurped from the expelled Greek Cypriots. Other sources estimate the number of settlers to rise to 110.000. The settlers were given “citizenship” and “voting rights” in an attempt to subvert the will of the Turkish Cypriot community and provide support to the occupation regime. At the same time, the indigenous Turkish Cypriot population, forced to emigrate because of the conditions prevailing in the north, continuously decreases. From about 120.000 people in 1974, they number less than 90.000 today. Since an additional 35.000 Turkish soldiers are permanently stationed on the island, the proportion between Turks and Turkish Cypriots in the occupied part of Cyprus is almost 2 to 1. This is particularly ironic since Turkey's invasion and continued occupation of the north of the island had the protection of the Turkish Cypriots as a pretext.

Turkey's colonization policy was fully confirmed and exposed in the report submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by the Spanish parliamentarian Alfons Cuco, who conducted a special mission in Cyprus. The Parliamentary Assembly, based on this report, condemned such colonization by its Recommendation 1197/1992.

People in the northern part of Cyprus are expressing more and more openly their dissatisfaction over the presence of the Turkish settlers and the Turkish soldiers stationed on the island. They fear that settlers brought from mainland Turkey will soon outnumber them and also that no political decisions are being taken on the island by their own politicians, but that Turkey is dictating the big decisions. Furthermore, many people are leaving the island, as they see no future prospects.

The dangers deriving from Turkey 's illegal colonization policy are also described in the Report of the Finnish Rapporteur of the Migration, Refugees and Demography Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Mr. Jaako Laakso. The Report, based on information given by the Cypriot authorities and the leaders of the T/C community, by NGOs and international organisations, stresses the fact that, immediately after the turkish invasion, the T/C “authorities” expelled almost all Greek-Cypriots to abandon the occupied areas and incited about 43.000 T/C, who up to that point were living in the free territories, to move to the northern part. Since then, the G/C refugees (amounting to 203.000 in 1989) have been stopped from returning to their homes by the Turkish troops, which now amount to more than 30.000 and represent more than 15% of the population in the occupied areas.

Furthermore, the settlers (coming from Anatolia, one of the poorest regions of Turkey, and possessing almost no professional skills) amount to more than 100.000, while the number of T/C keeps diminishing. What is more important, though, is the fact that the customs and traditions of the settlers are totally different from those of the T/C, and that is the main reason for tension rising in the occupied areas, since the indigenous T/C look down on the settlers as a foreign element. The above-mentioned situation has led to a strong current of emigration (from 1992 to 2000, about 55.000 T/C left the occupied areas due to their poor economic situation).

This situation has serious repercussions on the demographical, social and economical structure of the T/C community, as well as on the efforts to reach a comprehensive solution of the Cyprus problem through negotiations, since the G/C, who, in 1973 represented 78% of the total population of the island, now represent 76%. Mr. Laakso stresses the fact that this demographical change represents a real threat, to the extent that, in the long run, the increase of the turkish-speaking population can be used as a pretext to justify exaggerated turkish demands concerning the constitutional and the territorial issue.

The Rapporteur, in his conclusions, considers as absolutely necessary that immigration to Cyprus should be more strictly controlled, and calls upon the T/C “authorities” to supply information to that effect. He also calls upon the T/C “authorities” to reconsider its “legislation” on the issue of “naturalisation” in the occupied areas of the island, while insisting that a reliable research must be carried out in both parts of the island by the European Population Committee of the Council of Europe.

Violation of the human rights of the T/C
Turkey is also held responsible from the ECHR for violating the human rights of the Turkish Cypriot, since they are judged only by military courts.

The repression of freedom of expression and of opposition to the regime is worrying. In May 2001, the opposition newspaper “Avrupa” was bombed and later on all its property was seized. Also four of its journalists, including its editor Mr. Sener Levent, were imprisoned for 11 days for “spying”, while Mr. Levent himself claims that he has regularly received death threats. Furthermore, restrictions and warnings not to contact foreign embassies have been imposed on non-governmental organisations.

What is even worse, is the fact that the Turkish-Cypriot population suffers from isolation. The fact that only Turkey recognises “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” has led the northern part of the island to become an economically, socially and culturally isolated area. Due to restrictions set by the Turkish Cypriot “administration” people are prevented from taking part in associate activities. Examples such as members of the teachers association and children being prevented from flying to Greece to attend the Children's Olympics are regrettably numerous.

Missing Persons
Over 1.500 Greek Cypriots and Greeks have been missing, as a result of the 1974 military operations carried out by Turkey. This purely humanitarian aspect of the Cyprus tragedy requires full and exhaustive investigation, away from any political expediencies, so that safe and indisputable conclusions are reached concerning the fate of every missing person.

A special Committee, established by the U.N. in 1981, has been assigned with the task to investigate their fate. It had not produced any results until recently, owing mainly to the unwillingness of the Turkish side to cooperate. It should be noted that the Committee has not resumed its work since September 1997.

In a television interview broadcast on March 1st, 1996, the Turkish Cypriot leader Mr. Denktash declared that the missing Greeks and Greek Cypriots had in fact been killed in 1974 in cold blood by Turkish Cypriot irregulars and, therefore, the whole issue should be considered to be closed.

In 1997, President Clerides and Mr. Denktash agreed to exchange the information, which each side has on the fate of the missing persons, but unfortunately Mr. Denktash failed once again to fulfill his engagement.

Meanwhile, the ECHR, in its judgement of May 10th, 2001, found Turkey guilty for its failure to account for the fate of the missing persons and its refusal to carry out an effective investigation.

On December 4th, 2001, President Clerides and Rauf Denktash agreed to resume the talks for the determination of the fate of the missing persons. They held a meeting on January 11th, 2002, and agreed to exchange information on the fate of missing people, in priority of those missing in action.

Furthermore, the two leaders discussed this issue again at the end of July 2002. Once again, while the Greek-Cypriot side presented functional, detailed and effective proposals as to the reactivation of the Missing Persons Committee, the T/C leader failed to show any will to cooperate in good faith, in order to fulfill his engagements and respect the 31-7-1997 Agreement regarding exchange of information on the fate of missing persons.

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