Women to hold protest as Supreme Court hears Napa rape case appeal

Women’s organisations will hold a protest outside the Supreme Court on Thursday in solidarity with the appeal of a British woman who was convicted of lying about being gang raped by Israeli tourists in Ayia Napa.

The woman, who was 19-years-old when she reported in July 2019 that she had been raped by 12 Israelis aged 15 to 22, was charged with public mischief after she retracted her initial complaint and handed down a suspended four-month jail sentence after being found guilty by Famagusta district court.

The demonstration scheduled for 9.30am, aims to “protest the expropriation of her appeal to justice, the unfair trial, the misogynistic synergy of the state institutions against the victim,” organisers Network Against Violence Towards Women and Kores Unleashed said.

The Women’s Equality Party Brighton are also holding a supportive demonstration at 4pm local time outside the High Commission of Cyprus in London demanding justice for their “sister” on the day of her appeal, using the slogan #BoycottCyprus and #IBelieveHer.

“She wants to get on with life, but for her to get on with life she needs to get this conviction overturned,” barrister Michael Polak of Justice Abroad, who is helping the woman in his role as director, told UK media.

“This will be on her record. It means any time she applies to join an association or for a job she will be thinking back to this and what’s happened to her.

“So, it’s very important to her, even though she’s not in prison now, she’s back in the United Kingdom, it’s very important for her to overturn the conviction for that reason.”

If the conviction is not overturned her legal team intends to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The announcement of the protest includes a piece of prose poetry suggesting the woman was a “deprived of any support as a possible victim of rape” and that police interrogators “terrorised” and “broke” her.

The woman, who signed a statement retracting her rape allegations after her initial complaint, later claimed she was forced by officers to do so and that she had not written it.

The controversy surrounding her trial led to the woman being “slandered, betrayed, and tried by the Cypriot media”, the organisers said.

They added the complainant was not given a fair trial “with evidence and witnesses dismissed”.

“Let no woman who reports rape become fair game to the Patriarchal State ever again. The British Woman was one of us. We demand justice,” their announcement ends.

Participants of the protest “will conform to protocols for public health measures against the covid pandemic”.

Thursday’s protest follows several other demonstrations by women’s groups who were outraged by her conviction by the local court.

Following her complaint, a Scottish teenager who had her allegation of rape dismissed by police in Cyprus while she was underage, said she was having her case examined by Police Scotland.

The publicity surrounding the rape case cast a shadow over the popular tourist resort, with then Ayia Napa mayor Yiannis Karousos, who is currently the minister of transport, threatening to take legal action against the woman for damaging the resort’s reputation and Cyprus tourism.