Former prison to be turned into refuge
THE former Central Prison is to be turned into a refuge for women and refugees, Interior Minister Ziya Öztürkler has announced.
Inmates at the old prison building, located on the edge of Lefkoşa’s industrial zone, were moved into a new, larger and modern prison in Haspolat earlier this year.
Mr Öztürkler said the old jail will not remain empty and will serve an “important and positive purpose”.
Speaking during an interview on Kıbrıs TV, Mr Öztürkler said that work to transform the former prison into a centre for women in need of protection and refugees has begun and the aim is to complete the project in 2023.
The lack of any kind of detention centre for refugees, particularly children, was highlighted in September when a boy who was part of a group of people from Syria was put behind bars.
Referring to the incident,
Mr Öztürkler said he and officials “did everything we could to get him out and complete his time under state supervision but that he preferred to stay with the refugee group he was with”.
Expressing that “refugees are not criminals and will not be treated as such”, Mr Öztürkler noted that while the incident “caused great sadness”, it was
also important because it showed that laws in the TRNC “should be revised as soon as possible” and “this is why the work being carried out by the Interior Ministry and the Refugee Rights Association regarding refugees coming to the country by unconventional means is so important”.
Pointing out that Chapter 105 of the current Immigration
Law in effect in the TRNC “dates back to British Colonial rule”, Mr Öztürkler said that according to this law, the “definitions and practices regarding refugees arriving to the country by unconventional means are not in keeping with the rules of international law and human rights”, adding that they “should be reviewed and rewritten as soon as possible”.