Supporters of British woman convicted of falsifying rape call for Cyprus boycott

The mother of a British tourist convicted in Cyprus of falsely claiming she was gang-raped by Israelis has said she supports an online campaign to boycott the small island nation.

The 19-year-old woman, who hasn’t been named, was found guilty on Monday on a charge of public mischief and is due to be sentenced on January 7. The charge carries a maximum of a year in prison and a fine of 1,700 euros ($1,907).

She insists that she was raped in a hotel room at a coastal resort town of Ayia Napa on July 17 by a group of young Israelis and that she was forced to sign a retraction 10 days later under police questioning after being arrested on suspicion of “making a false statement about an imaginary crime.”

The conviction has led to anger in Britain and elsewhere at Cypriot authorities, who have been accused of mishandling the case.

The British Foreign Office has said it was “seriously concerned about the fair trial guarantees” of the woman. A British Foreign Office spokesman said the case was “deeply distressing” and that the office would raise the case with Cypriot authorities.

Following the conviction, the hashtag #BoycottCyprus began making the rounds on Twitter in the UK.

The women’s mother told the BBC on Wednesday: “The place isn’t safe. It is absolutely not safe. And if you go and report something that’s happened to you, you’re either laughed at, as far as I can tell, or, in the worst case, something like what’s happened to my daughter may happen.”

She claimed that her daughter’s human rights had been violated throughout the judicial process and said the family planned to appeal the ruling to the nation’s Supreme Court, though that process could drag on.

“Our lawyers are looking at what can be done to expedite that, and that’s maybe something the Foreign Office could help us with, so to get that as soon as we can,” she said.

Many women have come out in support of the British tourist in the wake of the incident. An Israeli academic on Wednesday told Israel’s Channel 12 news she was organizing a group of women to travel to Cyprus and join other demonstrators on the day of the sentencing.

“When it happened to me I wasn’t believed. No one was there for me,” Dr. Ruhama Weiss, a Talmud researcher, told the network. “We need to be there and say we won’t allow women to be silenced. A woman who arrives at hospital with bruises to her genitals after 12 teens penetrated her and filmed her against her wishes — I have no moral uncertainties here.”

The accused Israelis, aged 15 to 18, were initially arrested in the case but later released without charge. They returned home to a heroes’ welcome when they arrived back in Israel, sporting yarmulkes, with well-wishers opening champagne bottles and chanting “Am Yisrael Chai” (the people of Israel lives) along with “the Brit is a whore.”

Weiss said she wanted to send a message to the teens and their families “that this is not behavior we will accept. This is my Judaism too. Seeing them dancing with the yarmulkes is one of the things that broke me. I think God is weeping in heaven.”

Weiss wrote a Facebook post inviting anyone interested to join her and said many men and women had expressed interest in the trip.

Meanwhile a crowdfunding effort by the tourist’s family to help them pay the costs of the trial passed the £100,000 ($132,000) mark on Wednesday.

A psychologist who examined the woman said on Tuesday that she was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder when she retracted her claims.

Dr. Christine Tizzard, a chartered consultant psychologist called as a defense witness in the case, told The Guardian newspaper that the woman’s state of mind when she recanted the accusation was not properly taken into consideration during her trial.

Tizzard said that people suffering from PTSD can behave in unexpected ways in stressful situations. “They will very frequently feel such terror and discomfort and they will quite literally go along with anything to get out of a situation that they find overwhelming,” she said.

“My experience certainly of the teenager was, when talking to her, that she could change quite quickly, particularly if she was triggered by something that resembled the original trauma,” she said.

“It was clear, and has been clear all along, that she’s suffering from severe, and I do mean severe, PTSD,” Tizzard said. “She’s in a dreadful state – we’ve been worried about her for several months and how she has deteriorated.”

Tizzard said the woman needs therapy to prevent “life-changing” damage.

“The salient point is that she was diagnosed with PTSD. That’s a standalone diagnosis,” she said. “It’s a valid diagnosis and it hasn’t really been fully represented. Aside the fact it hasn’t been fully represented, it means she’s been unable to get the treatment she so sorely needs and every day she’s not having treatment the worse it gets.”

Tizzard gave evidence during an earlier November court hearing. She first assessed the woman in September and then again about four weeks ago.

“I’m concerned that she needs robust and adequate therapy and very, very quickly or there’s a real concern that this is going to be life-changing and remain that way,” she said.

Famagusta District Court Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said Monday the defendant hadn’t told the truth and had tried to deceive the court with “evasive” statements in her testimony.

The judge said the woman had admitted to investigators that she made up the claims because she was “ashamed” after finding out that some of the Israelis had taken cellphone video of her having consensual sex. Police have reportedly claimed the content of the video contradicts the woman’s initial rape claims.

During the trial, defense lawyers had called the police investigation deficient and improper, with detectives making major lapses and omissions in their work while having a mistaken perception of the facts surrounding their client’s claim.

Her lawyers said they would appeal the conviction, citing the judge’s refusal to consider evidence that she had been raped.

Cyprus’s government spokesman Kyriakos Kousios said the government doesn’t intervene or comment on pending court cases, saying it has “full confidence in the justice system and the courts,” which should be left unfettered to implement the law and deliver justice.

Two of the Mediterranean island’s former top prosecutors and an ex-justice minister have called on Attorney General Costas Clerides to drop charges against the teenager.

Alecos Markides, a former attorney general, said prosecuting the teenager was not in the public interest and was damaging the image of Cyprus, a European Union member state.

“This rigidness of the court has provoked an international reaction,” he told local radio.

Clerides said in a statement it remained a matter for the courts to decide and any intervention would constitute judicial “interference.”

British legal aid group Justice Abroad, which is supporting the woman, said the defense would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.