TC clampdown on shopping in free areas

IN flagrant violation of the Green Line regulation, the occupation regime is clamping down on Turkish Cypriot shopping in the free area of Cyprus through threats and intimidation.

The so-called police at the checkpoints seize items from the hands of consumers and arrest anyone who protests.
In an incident at the Ledra Palace reported yesterday in the daily Africa, they confiscated flowerpots being brought from the south and when the buyer Zehra Derebay tried to argue with the "police" she was taken into custody for insulting them.
In an earlier episode, a 2-year old child had a chocolate taken from its hand and thrown away at the Ayios Dometios checkpoint.
The chocolate, of European brand, notes the paper, was purchased in the free areas by the child’s father.
EU diplomats in Nicosia are upset over the growing development, because the whole concept of reciprocity upon which Green Line trade is based has been undermined, according Cyprus Weekly special correspondent Costas Apostolides (see news analysis on page 44).
Although aware of the reactions, the northern regime appears determined to continue and escalate the measures, wanting to revive a "Turk to Turk" solidarity policy that was enforced by the TMT terrorist organization in the years of the Turkish Cypriot mutiny after 1963.
The restrictive measures dampen further the prospects of opening the Ledra Street checkpoint.
Asked about the negative policy of the Turkish Cypriot side on his return from Athens, President Papadopoulos expressed regret and said it went to show who really are forcing the Turkish Cypriots into isolation.
The shopping restrictions have raised an outcry among the Turkish Cypriots. The newspaper Ortam yesterday described the decision of the so-called ‘government’ as fascist, bringing the citizens into confrontation with the ‘police.’
The Turkish Cypriot Teachers Trade Union (KTOS) also condemned the move against shoppers, noting that they so-called authorities imposed their inhuman behaviour using as a pretext the foot-and-mouth-disease in the south.
In confirmation of this, the self-styled ‘prime minister’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer yesterday announced that because of the foot-and-mouth disease, products such as meat, milk and dairies would not be allowed in from the free areas.
He also said that the pseudogovernment was determined to apply the measures included in the Green Line regulation.
The Federation of the Workers Unions DEV-IS said in an announcement that the "customs" measures, as it called them, at the checkpoints are antiquated methods and that the best way of controlling the situation was to reduce prices in the occupied areas in order for a healthy competition to exist with the free areas.

(From Cyprus Weekly)