UK teenager’s conviction touches a nerve with angry Cypriot women
Women’s rights are now in the spotlight, with a new protest group using the ‘false rape’ case to raise awareness of abuse and injustice across the country

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Famagusta district court is an unlikely springboard for a women’s movement to leap into the headlines. The tired, one-storey building in the small east-coast town of Paralimni is unused to seeing camera crews, much less a clutch of Fleet Street’s finest prowling its corridors.

But even they seemed insignificant next to the protesters who had shown up in support of the British teenager on trial for allegedly fabricating a claim of being gang raped last summer by 12 Israeli youths aged between 15 and 22, in the resort town of Ayia Napa.

Members of the newly created Network Against Violence Against Women (NAVAW), they had come in the pouring rain driven by a burning desire to see a purported injustice addressed.


The fate of the 19-year-old British student – found guilty that day of falsely accusing the Israelis of rape – had brought them to this place, placards and banners in hand. But it wasn’t all. The young woman’s ordeal, as gruelling and unfair as it appeared in their eyes, had galvanised a much deeper fury – one that runs deep in the fabric of a society more Levantine than European.

“It has given an explosion to the voice of women who have been very angry since the murders,” says Argentoula Ioannou, referring to the deaths of seven foreign women and girls at the hands of a serial killer who went undetected by the island’s authorities for years. Bodies of most of the victims were found last year in suitcases in the bottom of lakes on the Mediterranean island. “It is anger that we are turning into action now.”

An activist lawyer who has long been the force behind Cyprus’s single parents’ association, Ioannou helped set up the network in October.

On Tuesday, she will be among the protesters who will again descend on the court – this time with scores of fellow female demonstrators from Israel – for the sentencing of the Briton, who stands convicted of the crime of public mischief. The offence carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a fine of up to €1,700.

“It will be a big protest, a protest like no other,” she warns, calling the teenager’s alleged retraction of the rape claim a travesty of justice. “What has been happening in our country is very, very wrong.”

Few cases have touched such a nerve. On an island where women’s rights are rarely aired publicly, one woman’s fight for justice has stirred an underbelly of grievances so raw few can tell where they will lead.

“It has brought to the surface the problems of sexism and misogyny that we have across the private and public sectors,” says Susana Pavlou of the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies in Nicosia, the divided capital.

“Cyprus has one of the highest rates of tertiary-educated women in the world, which makes you think it’s a rather modern society at first. Then a case like this comes along and all these deeply held patriarchal attitudes, that might not be apparent at first glance, come to the fore.”

From last August, when the trial began, court proceedings had been clouded by what she describes as “gender stereotypes, classic rape myths and victim bashing”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-at-injustices

Yes
we find out tomorrow.

Boycott Cyprus is growing.

Has anyone seen how one of the boys has done a lot of interviews claiming he wants her in prison for a long time and a hell of a lot of compo.

Makes me sick

i think if a woman had made a false rape claim against your name you would be of a similar mind

It's a disgraceful situation, Cyprus should hand her over to the UK as along with all the evidence against her so a competent investigation can be held because the more that gets revealed about this story, the more corrupt the police are looking.

You would believe the man though

Looks like they've lost public support in Israel :

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rl-Cyprus.html

This week, two of Israel’s top celebrity journalists, Guy Meroz and Orly Vilnai — the Richard and Judy of Tel Aviv — described how they’d travelled to Cyprus and interviewed the British girl many times and are convinced she is telling the truth.

‘She was raped without question,’ Orly told viewers yesterday. ‘We are both convinced she was physically raped. We met a wonderful young woman whose trauma was loud and clear in almost all her behaviour. She bites her fingernails, at times she “gets stuck” and goes into a world from which she needs to be woken up.’

the courts and the law in that country have spoken, sentence will be tomorrow

Cyprus is so corrupt and their courts and law system are not to be trusted,


They had video evidence yet refused to believe the girl what so ever.

Boris should come down hard on Cypeus because they rely heavily on British money

And they are wrong, not that bootlickers will ever be able to question what their masters are saying despite it not adding up.

that is a rather xenophobic view

foreign so must be tinpot corrupt

:/

The fact is they had video evidence of the rape that they disregarded and refused to look into.

Then they had a statement that she apparently wrote that said she lied but wasnt written with proper english.

Also they refused to film the interviews

allegations that were dealt with in the hearing

They did not even investigate the video when they should have, it had proof that she was forced and called horrible names and all the bruises she was left with were Mark's that a rape victim would have had

They should request the girl and 12 boys are extradited to the UK and allow a proper investigation to happen

https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/...trip=all&w=835

marks found on her body consistent with rape but the judge dismissed them as "jellyfish stings" this case is gross

that "evidence" came from a poor sketch, not a photograph and the conclusion from a pathologist who spoke to the Daily Mail and who saw the sketch and not the body




State pathologist Sophocles Sophocleous had previously told the court that the teen had no marks on her body consistent with serious sexual assault. He said there were a few light bruises on her thighs and scratches on her leg but that a lot were old and those on her leg were consistent with bumping into furniture.
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The claim that they were consistent with "a rape" came from the team trying to get her off and was dismissed by the judge

Poor lass, that sounds like PTSD :(

The judge in charge has a history of accusing female rape victims of lying.

There seem to be rumblings of an instant presidential pardon even if she gets a jail sentence... which of course means they get to pard her conviction and she gets to come home, but they don't have to admit that anything was wrong with the trial. I would suggest that Cyprus wants this case to "go away" because they're worried about people looking into it too much.

Even Israel isn't supporting the 12 "innocent Israeli boys" at this point ffs.

How does a country support in that way. They were proven innocent. ?

They were proven not guilty....big difference to being proven innocent

They wasnt even proven not guilty the people on charge didnt even care about the rape

Was just coming back in to say this....the case was about her, not them.

She will be pardoned I'm sure.....hope she manages to put this behind her in time and move on with her life......and never return there.

You made that up.