Indicator history

No death or killings related to racism have been reported in recent years.

  In July 2004, a Greek-Cypriot man killed a ten-year-old Roma boy in an unprovoked cold-blooded incident, which took place in a public area in Limassol. Even before the conclusion of the inquest, the Cyprus government and all political parties rushed to condemn the incident as an isolated crime committed by a psychopath with a criminal record, who was also a drug addict, obviously fearing retaliations and further violence from members of the Turkish-Cypriot community. In a press release after the incident, one human rights NGO regretted the interpretation offered by the authorities. It argued that psychopathologic conditions or drug abuse do not automatically turn a person into a murderer, nor do they justify the apparently nationalist and racist motives of the murderer. In the court action that followed, the judge also rejected the authorities’ position of the perpetrator being a person of diminished responsibility but there have been no findings relating this incident to racism.