Protest over Astrasol cancer ruling

Cancer patients protested outside the Astrasol shoe-sole factory on Saturday morning following a ruling that found no causal link between the company’s operation and the cancer cases detected nearby.

Holding a placard with the Green Party’s logo reading “we demand justice” a group of patients who were living near the factory and got cancer protested on the site of Astrasol in Latsia on Saturday. The patients were calling on the guilty parties to be punished.

“Everyone has a right to a healthy life,” they had said in their announcement, inviting other human rights groups to join them.

Last week, the group’s lawyer, Loukis Loucaides, had criticised the September 9 Supreme Court’s decision, saying the group will file a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to have the decision overturned.

According to the ruling, a causal link between the cancers and the operation of the plant was not proven.

But Loucaides said an epidemiologist had testified and reported that the factory emitted carcinogenic substances.

“These [patients] were all residents, living next to the factory, and they all got cancer. Is that a coincidence?” he asked.

He added that the defence did not scientifically explain how these 50 people might otherwise have become ill.

“Justice means interpreting laws based on law and logic,” Loucaides told Cyprus News Agency (CNA).

The initial court decision in December 2017 found the Astrasol shoe-sole factory guilty of using an excessive amount of dichloromethane R40, a chemical classified as ‘likely to be carcinogenic in humans’.

The court ruled that government authorities and Astrasol were inadvertently liable for creating a cancer cluster of people working and living in the factory’s vicinity.

Those found guilty were Astrasol, one of its directors, Fivos Liasis, and the state, via the attorney-general (on behalf of the labour inspection department, the ministry of health and the town planning department).

The government departments in question were deemed responsible for allowing the factory to continue its operation without the required permits, and for not taking steps to mitigate its toxic emissions.

Meanwhile, in February 2020, Nicosia District court denied the attorney general’s request for the government to delay paying plaintiffs who successfully sued the shoe factory for causing them health issues, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.

The court awarded a combined €433,000 in damages to six plaintiffs. However, some of them have since passed away.

The class-action suit, involving 22 plaintiffs in total, was filed back in 2010.