In Prison
Published by deviousdiva June 3rd, 2006 in Immigration.Another disturbing story of a woman being held in prison while awaiting deportation. Olga Kuznetsova is legally residing in Cyprus, her permit valid until 2009. She is in prison because… she lost her job.
From Cyprus Tales
A Russian woman formerly employed with an offshore company is now behind bars as she awaits her deportation from Cyprus for losing her job.Olga Kuznetsova came to Cyprus with her son in 2000, on a work permit that was valid until March of 2009. But in December of last year the offshore bank employing her terminated her contract. Kuznetsova claims she is owed three months wages and demands to be re-employed at the company.
The law states that a person’s work status continues to exist in the event of an industrial dispute. But on the 11th of this month, without warning, police entered her house and arrested her and her nine-year-old boy, Alexey, as illegal aliens. Alexey was later released and has since been living with family friends in Limassol. The boy has been allowed to stay on the island until June 23 so he can take his finals at his school.
The Cyprus Mail reports that Olga was arrested unlawfully, as she had not been given the required 14-day warning by Immigration to leave the country. They just came and picked her up, a source told them.
Moreover, having stayed on the island for five years, Olga is eligible for long-term residency, according to the European Council’s Directive 2003/109/EC on the status of third-country nationals. The Cyprus government has ratified the directive.
Olga’s lawyers have asked the head of the Immigration Department to release her so she can be with her son. They have received no answer, nor any formal explanation for Olga’s arrest.
An appeal to the Cyprus Supreme Court has been filed.
See also this story from April 2006
Technorati Tags: greece, immigration
What do you want to bet the company she used to work for has something to do with this?It just seems like everything is pissing me off today, just because the world is full of assholes.
This is indeed a sad tale - I agree with the comment above "the world is full of assholes"!
DD - his is a piece I wrote just after my return from cyprus last summer - the first para is the relevant piece. The Senegalese guy texts me from time to time and i sent him $100 to so he could try to get to Greece. He got caught that night which was just as well as he probably would have drowned. Spent a few days in jail then the next thing I got a text saying he had made it to Greece and was in Germany. He texted me from Germany then got deported back to Greece. He is now back in Cyprus. Have asked some friends to try and help him get work but no luck as yet - he says he wants to go home but i think he is working now in cyprus - the story here in spain is pretty much the same and i havve written a few pieces - anyway here is the link to this one - others are filed under "immigration Europe"Cyprus
For some time, there have been serious problems with the rights of immigrants in Cyprus. Most of the problems suggest that Cyprus has much in common with the Arab countries, in how it deals with non-citizens. There is, in my mind at least, a serious question about the admission of this country in the European Union. The fact that some of its legal structures etc are British-derived, and that has a sister-country of Greece, does not mean that basic standards of human rights are observed there. I predict that Europe will regret this mistake of not checking their newcomers’ credentials more thoroughly…