Increasing trend in antisemitic incidents in Cyprus

According to Cyprus police chief, there is an increasing trend in antisemitic incidents in the country.

 Cyprus police chief Stelios Papatheodorou claims that while there were 40 and 41 racist incidents recorded in Cyprus in 2019 and 2020, none of those were antisemitic. Nevertheless, the statistics prove that there has been an increasing trend in antisemitic incidents, reports the CyprusMail.

“From the statistics that we maintain as the police, there is indeed an increasing trend,” the police chief said at the opening of a workshop on antisemitism, organised by the Cyprus police academy in coordination with the Israeli embassy.

“This is where the importance of education lies, especially for members of the security forces, whose primary goal is to provide them with the necessary guarantees to identify, detect and deal with incidents of antisemitism,” Papatheodorou added.

He claims that the Jewish community in Cyprus today “is a living, active and prosperous part of our society”. Besides standard security, the police patrols the areas of synagogues and foreign embassies, including the Israeli embassy.

“We, as the Cyprus police, have a responsibility, both at the educational and investigative level, as well as at the operational level to combat antisemitism. I believe, however, that the most important aspect of the issue is the change of mentality at the societal level,” the police chief said.

“As Albert Einstein rightly stated the world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking’. Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and drawing on the lessons of this tragic page of history will make it possible to prevent the horrors of the past,” Papatheodorou added.