A damning report from a top European human rights body has laid bare a catastrophic breakdown of order and dignity within Cyprus’s principal correctional facility, prompting urgent government intervention. The Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee has documented a toxic combination of severe overcrowding, critical staff shortages, and rampant violence at the Nicosia Central Prisons, creating conditions it implicitly condemned as inhuman and degrading.
The findings, compiled during an unannounced inspection in April 2025 by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), depict an institution in profound crisis. The prison population now exceeds double the facility’s intended capacity, with inmates crammed into cells measuring less than six square metres. This extreme congestion is compounded by a chronic and debilitating deficit of frontline officers, which the report identifies as a root cause for the collapse of institutional control. Consequently, authority has effectively ceded to prisoner factions, fostering an environment where criminal enterprises are orchestrated from within the walls and violence is endemic.
Specific details within the document are particularly harrowing. Due to a lack of night-time supervision, inmates in over half of the prison blocks are denied access to toilet facilities, forced to resort to using bottles and plastic bags for sanitation—a practice the CPT explicitly labelled as “degrading.” Furthermore, the report highlights an “alarmingly high” incidence of inter-prisoner assaults, a grim reality underscored by a recent murder. Conditions for incarcerated minors were described as wholly unsuitable, with children held in mould-infested cells without educational provisions, reporting feelings of hunger, cold, and profound neglect.
The publication has triggered significant domestic repercussions. Cyprus’s Justice Minister, Costas Fitiris, swiftly announced a personal visit to the facility, signalling high-level political concern. Meanwhile, the prison guards’ union, Pasydy, issued a scathing statement, declaring that the “constant clashes, murders, and criminal cases planned inside prisons are a disgrace to a European state governed by the rule of law.” This sentiment reflects a palpable exhaustion among staff who operate daily in what the CPT characterized as an “explosive security crisis” endangering both inmates and officers.
Analysts point to systemic judicial practices that readily impose custodial sentences as a key driver of the overcrowding. The CPT’s urgent recommendations include an immediate recruitment and training drive for prison staff, a comprehensive overhaul of violence prevention protocols, and the expedited removal of minors from the prison environment. The report’s broader scope, which also examined police detention and migrant reception centres, suggests deep-seated issues within the nation’s entire detention infrastructure. The pressure is now firmly on Cypriot authorities to translate this stark international censure into tangible and immediate reform, lest the nation’s commitment to European human rights standards be irrevocably tarnished.