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Nicosia: Armenian cemetery 'was being demolished for a car park'

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  • Nicosia: Armenian cemetery 'was being demolished for a car park'

    Armenian cemetery 'was being demolished for a car park'

    Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
    June 1 2005

    AN ARMENIAN cemetery, listed as a heritage site, was being demolished
    to make way for a parking lot, Green party deputy George Perdikis
    said yesterday.

    The House Education Committee yesterday discussed the serious damage
    caused to the Armenian cemetery near the Ledra Palace Hotel, when the
    Armenian Prelature decided last month to dig up the remains and place
    them in a communal pit in the new Armenian cemetery on the outskirts
    of the capital.

    But the move sparked outrage among the Armenian community, who saw
    machinery digging indiscriminately, scattering remains all over
    the place.

    Interior Minister Andreas Christou suggested the procedure resembled
    the digging of bunkers to place tanks inside.

    Perdikis suggested a crime had been committed, despite the Armenian
    Prelature's good intentions, and claimed that the cemetery was being
    demolished to make way for a parking lot.

    Christou said the site had been listed since April 2, 2004 though
    the Prelature claimed it had not known about it.

    Neither did they know that the company, which took on the digging,
    would have committed such unpleasant acts, the committee heard.

    The Nicosia Municipality said the order declaring the site listed
    had been published in three daily newspapers, though the owner had
    not been informed in person.

    Work at the cemetery had been halted after the Interior Ministry
    secured an injunction. Townplanning department representative Athina
    Aristotelous stressed that the workers doing the job were not skilled,
    smashing the tombstones - some of which date back to the Middle Ages -
    and collecting them in a heap.

    The Education Committee asked the Prelature to inform them in writing
    about what they were planning to do to restore the damage.
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