Paralimni: The unveiling of statues of Tassos Isaak and Solomos Solomou, who were murdered in 1996 during protests against the Turkish occupation of Cyprus’ northern third, took place on Saturday evening in Paralimni village, in Famagusta district. The unveiling was conducted by the President of the House of Representatives, Annita Demetriou, who noted that their killers remain unpunished and stressed that if we get used to the status quo, it means that we are betraying those who never accepted it.
According to Cyprus News Agency, the two statues were created by sculptor Philippos Yiapanis, at the initiative of the Municipality of Paralimni-Deryneia. The event was also attended by hundreds of motorcyclists from the Isaak-Solomou Memory Initiative, who had ridden their motorcycles through all the cities in the government-controlled area of the island, before arriving at the memorial site.
In her address, Demetriou said that the 2008 decision of the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates Turkey’s guilt but is still not implemented. “Tassos’ and Solomos’ murderers remain unpunished,” she noted.
“If we get used to the status quo,” she said “then it is as if we are betraying those who never accepted it-those who stood up (for Cyprus) where no one else dared, forming a shield for the entire Hellenism of Cyprus”. She added that the sacrifice of the two heroes “does not allow us to remain silent; it compels us to persist-with steadfastness, national consciousness, strategy, and diplomacy.”
She added that “Cyprus is European territory under the military control of a third country, and occupation cannot be tolerated.” She wondered whether another European country would tolerate having barbed wires, homes and properties being stolen, churches being desecrated.
In her address, Anastasia Isaak, daughter of Tassos Isaak, who was born after her father’s murder, said that on August 11, 1996, “the barbarians”, with the help of the occupation army, beat her father, an unarmed man, to death with clubs, stones, and sticks. She added that so many years later, not all people have understood that “the occupation affects our daily lives, our present, and our future”.
The murderers of her father and of Solis (Solomos), she continued, “walk free, give away our properties, and we continue to live in a normality built upon forgetting. We live in a situation created by the murderers because we forgot who paid with blood,” she said, noting that “we do not accept the sacrifice of Tassos and Solomos being in vain.
She added that “we demand, just as this monument has been erected, that justice is also served, that the murderers are arrested, with a view to pave the path to liberation.’
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.
In 2008, the ECHR unanimously ruled that Ankara is guilty of violating Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of the killing of Tasos Isaak and Solomos Solomou.
The Court also ruled that Turkey is guilty of violating Article 2 in respect of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances in which Isaak and Solomou were killed.
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded 80,000 euro to Isaak’s widow for pecuniary damage. In respect of non-pecuniary damage, the Court awarded 35,000 euro each to Isaak’s widow, his parents, and to Solomou’s father, and also 15,000 euro to each of Isaak’s and Solomou’s siblings. The applicants in both cases were also awarded 12,000 for costs and expenses.
The two applications were filed to the Court by the families of Tasos Isaak and Solomou Solomou, both of whom were murdered by Turkish or Turkish Cypriots during demonstrations in 1996.
The 25-year-old Tasos Isaak was beaten to death on 11 August 1996 by a Turkish mob, while taking part in an anti-occupation demonstration at Dherynia, on the east of the island. The killing took place in the UN-controlled buffer zone, which separates the northern Turkish occupied north from the southern government controlled part of the country.
Solomos Solomou, then aged 26, was killed on 14 August 1996, after being shot three times by Turkish snipers, while trying to climb a pole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast. The killing happened after the funeral of his cousin Tassos Isaak.