Amnesty International Report 2017/18

142

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

CYPRUS

Republic of Cyprus

Head of state and government: Nicos Anastasiades

UN-backed peace talks for the reunification 

of the island collapsed in early July. 

Reception conditions for asylum-seekers 

remained a cause of concern.

BACKGROUND

After intense negotiations, high-level peace 

talks for the reunification of Cyprus failed to 

reach an agreement in early July. The Greek-

Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot leaders could not 

agree on security, including the withdrawal of 

Turkish troops, and property issues.

REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS

In February, the Supreme Court rejected an 

application challenging the detention and 

extradition of Seif el-Din Mostafa, an Egyptian 

national accused of hijacking an EgyptAir 

plane in March 2016. Despite concerns he 

would be at real risk of torture or other ill-

treatment if returned to Egypt, the Supreme 

Court decided not to accept additional 

evidence regarding the risk of torture. The 

Court held that the applicant could be 

extradited regardless of his not having had a 

final decision in his asylum claim. In 

November, the Supreme Court also rejected 

an appeal lodged against its previous 

decision. However, on the same day the 

European Court of Human Rights halted Seif 

el-Din Mostafa’s extradition to Egypt.

In May, the CERD Committee expressed 

concerns about the limited employment 

options for asylum-seekers living on the 

island, the insufficient amount of social 

assistance they received and the limited 

reception facilities. The Committee also 

raised concern about the insufficient access 

to services for those asylum-seekers staying 

at the Kofinou Reception and 

Accommodation Center for Applicants for 

International Protection, the only official 

centre hosting asylum-seekers on the island.

In September, the NGO Future Worlds 

Center warned of the need for a contingency 

reception plan, especially in case of an 

increase in refugees arriving by boat. 

According to the UN Migration Agency, 851 

people arrived by boat on Cyprus between 

January and November 2017 in comparison 

to 345 in the previous year.

ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

Between January and the end of December, 

the Committee of Missing Persons in Cyprus 

exhumed the remains of 46 people, bringing 

the total number of exhumations since 2006 

to 1,217. Between 2007 and 31 December 

2017, the remains of 855 missing individuals 

(645 Greek Cypriots and 210 Turkish 

Cypriots) were identified.

DISCRIMINATION – PEOPLE WITH 

DISABILITIES

In May, the UN Committee on the Rights of 

Persons with Disabilities expressed concerns 

about the insufficient access to health care 

by people with disabilities, the high level of 

unemployment among them and the 

insufficient measures to promote their access 

to employment in an open labour market.

TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT

In April, the European Court of Human Rights 

found that the Cypriot Ombudsperson and 

the national police complaints mechanism 

had failed to investigate effectively the alleged 

ill-treatment of a Kenyan national during his 

deportation in March 2007 (Thuo v. Cyprus). 

The Court also held that the applicant’s 

detention conditions in Nicosia Central Prison 

amounted to degrading treatment.

At the end of August, a 60-year-old Turkish 

national claimed to have been ill-treated by a 

police officer outside and inside a police 

station near a designated crossing point of 

the UN Buffer Zone. The incident was being 

investigated by the national police complaints 

mechanism at the end of the year.

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

143

CZECH REPUBLIC

Czech Republic

Head of state: Miloš Zeman

Head of government: Andrej Babiš (replaced Bohuslav 

Sobotka in December)

The government refused to participate in 

the EU mandatory refugee relocation 

quotas. Despite reforms, Roma pupils 

continued to be segregated in schools. An 

amendment allowing municipalities to 

declare zones of “socially pathological 

behaviour” with restricted access to housing 

benefits entered into force.

DISCRIMINATION – ROMA

RIGHT TO EDUCATION

One year after the reform of the primary 

education system that aimed to facilitate the 

inclusion of pupils from disadvantaged 

backgrounds into mainstream schools, Roma 

children continued to face discrimination in 

access to education. In July, the government 

published data which showed that over 24% 

of Roma pupils continued to be educated in 

ethnically segregated schools.

In March, a district court ordered a primary 

school in the city of Ostrava to apologize to 

two Roma pupils. The school had refused to 

register the pupils in 2014, claiming that it 

had reached full capacity. Legal guardians of 

the pupils complained that the director 

justified his decision by claiming that non-

Roma parents could start removing their 

children from the school as there were 

already nine Roma pupils registered in that 

grade. The court held that a fear of “white 

flight” could not justify the treatment of pupils 

on the basis their ethnicity.

RIGHT TO HOUSING

In July, an amendment to the law on welfare 

benefits entered into force and dozens of 

municipalities announced that they would 

restrict access to housing allowances. The 

amendment allows municipalities to declare 

zones of “socially pathological behaviour” 

where residents would be barred from 

claiming some housing allowances. This will 

affect new tenants or those who move to or 

within these zones. NGOs raised concerns 

that the new regulation would 

disproportionately affect Roma and poor 

people.

REFUGEES AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS

The Czech Republic accepted only 12 

asylum-seekers out of the 2,691 it had been 

assigned under the 2015 EU Emergency 

Relocation Scheme – which aimed to relocate 

refugees from EU member states such as 

Greece and Italy – by the end of the year. In 

June, the European Commission started 

infringement procedures against the Czech 

Republic, as well as Poland and Hungary, for 

refusing to participate in the scheme. In July, 

the government stated it would not accept 

any further asylum-seekers. In December, 

the European Commission decided to step up 

the action against all three countries and 

referred them to the Court of Justice of the 

European Union over their refusal to accept 

the asylum-seekers under the scheme.

There were 974 applications made for 

international protection by the end of the 

year. Thirteen people were successful in their 

applications; 79 applications were rejected. 

Sixteen asylum-seekers from Afghanistan 

were refused an extension to their temporary 

protection. The government continued to 

base such asylum decisions on its arbitrary 

designation of certain areas in Afghanistan as 

“safe”, despite evidence to the contrary and 

with violence continuing to escalate in 

Afghanistan during the year.

RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA

High-level government officials, including the 

President, made xenophobic statements 

about refugees and migrants. During the pre-

election campaign, the Minister of Interior 

presented as a success the restrictive policies 

that led refugees to avoid the Czech 

Republic.

In February, the police discontinued their 

investigation into the 2016 death of a Roma 

man at a pizzeria in Žatec, determining that 

no crime had been committed. The man died 

after he was restrained by municipal police 

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