Cypriot refugees pay for picking flowers
Officials in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus yesterday released five Greek Cypriot tourists arrested on Tuesday for picking flowers from the garden of the house their family was forced to abandon in the 1974 invasion. The family group, including an 80-year-old woman, returned to the south after a Turkish-Cypriot court released them – having levied a 200-pound (344-euro) fine. According to one of the five, journalist Pambos Mitidis, the group was arrested when a British woman who had bought a Greek-Cypriot house next to their own, in the village of Karmi, called the police after seeing his wife pick a flower from the garden of the Mitidis family’s house – which has been purchased by a US citizen. Thousands of foreigners have bought properties in the Turkish-occupied north, many of which were seized from Greek-Cypriot refugees.
