All students must undergo HIV test while those whose permit has expired must leave the country - TRNC Government

As part of crackdown by the government of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus to curb the rising number of illegal residents, crime and sexual assault, the TRNC has rolled out a new immigration rules that mandates all students to undergo HIV tests.

According to a recently released communique, foreign university students in the island will be forced to leave the country if they fail health tests or stop studying.

Head of the TRNC Education Ministry’s Higher Education Department, Ziya Öztürkler, revealed the measures following new claims from a think tank that some students from Africa are being subjected to sexual assault and rape – reports slammed as “sensational news” by a group representing North Cyprus universities. 

The fresh revelations came after a high-level delegation from Zimbabwe visited North Cyprus in September to investigate claims, first reported in the TRNC by Cyprus Today, that students from the country were turning to prostitution and drug dealing after being tricked into taking bogus scholarships. 

At the time, Mr Öztürkler had said that the allegations were “unfounded” and that the TRNC was a “safe place to study”. 

Following the escalation of the news of the arrest of a Cameroonian student, Kamden Chenteu Veronique, by her boss in September, because she demanded that her almost four months salary be paid, an investigation into the incident revealed how students were being used as a source of cheap labour by their employers in the island.

To this effect, the Turkish Cypriot trade union leaders in November, called on the government to take action on employers suspected of using students from “poor countries” as a source of “cheap illegal labour”. 

Under the new plans, to be introduced for the 2018/19 academic year, 
-All non-TRNC students, including those from Turkey, will have to undergo tests for HIV, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis. 

-The health checks will be mandatory for students in order to obtain new “permits”, which will be valid for two years for Turkish citizens, and three years for those from “other countries”. 

-The health reports must be from a “fully equipped specialist hospital” or from a “university hospital of Turkey” and should be no more than three months old.

-Prospective students will also have to supply immigration authorities with photographs, photocopies of their passports, proof of where are staying in the TRNC and paperwork showing the dates they have entered and exited the country. 

-Those who have graduated or ceased to be a student “for whatever reason” will have three months to leave the TRNC. 

-Students whose permits have been cancelled will be given just seven days to depart.

According to Dr Öztürkler, the aim of the new regulations, first drafted in June, was to “protect both students and our people”. 

He said that officials from the ministries of interior, labour and social security, the Prime Minister’s office and the Higher Education Planning, Inspection Accreditation and Coordination Committee (Yödak) had all been involved in devising the new rules. 

His announcement came after Mine Yücel, the head of the Centre for Migration, Identity and Rights Studies (CMIRS), said on Monday last week that up to half of female university students from Africa were being subjected to “racism, rape and molestation”, according to the preliminary findings of a new study by the group. 

She said that the lack of public transport after 6:00pm meant that women students interviewed for the research, such as those who worked part-time in cafes and restaurants, “were not safe when they went home late at night”. 

Ms Yücel said the interviewees had told of being attacked while “walking on the road” or “hitchhiking” and that “most of the rapists” were “local mature men” as well as other “African students” or “those who had come here as students but never studied and were involved in illegal activities”.

Others spoke of being raped after having their drinks “spiked”. She said that the “victims” had been ignored by the police, who viewed the incidents as “conflicts among tribes”. 

Also, Ms Yücel said that some foreign students were paying 400TL to have “illegal abortions” in “unhealthy environments” and that others were selling their eggs to IVF clinics for 300 to 400 euros or being “forced into prostitution”. 

She declined to say how many people had been interviewed for the research because it was “still ongoing”. 

The initial findings were however criticized by the Inter-University Academic Coordination Council (ÜAKK) which said in a statement on Thursday last week that it had been “saddened by the sensational news published in the press”. 

The statement said such “exaggerated” news stories “only caused harm to the TRNC and its universities” and called on media organisations to “show more sensitivity” to stories concerning foreign students and “their alleged troubles”. 

Speaking to Cyprus Today on Friday last week, Dr Öztürkler questioned the “reliability and accuracy” of research carried out by the CMIRS. 

Are those studies based on scientific methods? Which methods have been used? Yödak has not received any information regarding those studies,” he said.

Dr Öztürkler said that “neither the police, Education Ministry nor Yödak” had received any “official complaints” from foreign university students. 

Currently, there are around 100,000 students studying at 16 universities in the TRNC, about a third of whom are from outside the TRNC and Turkey.

Students from Africa, including Nigeria and Zimbabwe, make up around 11,000 to 12,000, of the total students, according to Dr Öztürkler.