21 years since the sacrifice of Solomos Solomos

On August 14, 1996, the funeral of Tassos Isaac, who had been beaten to death three days earlier, took place during a motorcycle race in occupied Kyrenia to protest. A tragic figure at his funeral was his wife, who was pregnant with their first child.

After the funeral procession, a group left the area in order to go to the occupied areas to pay tribute to the place where Tassos Isaac was killed, laying wreaths and flowers. With them was Tassos Isaac's cousin, 26-year-old Solomos Solomou. Solomou was a refugee from Famagusta, who lived in Paralimni.

The procession reached the point of murder in the dead zone. At one point, Solomos Solomou left the rally and headed to a nearby Turkish outpost. Turkish soldiers warned him to stop. But Solomou did not listen to them. Determined for everything, with a cigarette in his mouth and without a trace of fear, he climbed the mast of the Turkish flag in order to lower it. Three shots were heard. All three hit him in the mouth, neck and stomach respectively, resulting in him falling dead.

Other shootings followed, with 11 people slightly injured. Two days later, the funeral of Solomos Solomos took place in Paralimni, with the crowd mourning the loss of the 26-year-old and at the same time expressing their indignation at the Turkish brutality.

The day after the funeral, the then Prime Minister of Greece, Costas Simitis, visited Cyprus and characterized the murderers of Solomos Solomos as common criminals. At the same time, the then Prime Minister of Turkey Tansu Ziller, was in the occupied territories and fully justified the action of the Turkish soldiers, saying that "the Turks will cut off the hands of anyone who insults the national symbol."

US Secretary of State Nicholas Burns responded to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the phrase "human life is more important than a piece of cloth." At the same time, the Cypriot Police, through visual material, was able to identify the five perpetrators of the murder for whom they issued an international arrest warrant. The killer, as he himself admitted in 2004, was Kenan Akin, the pseudo-state agriculture minister, who was justified in acting on the orders of Khalil Sandrazam, the then commander of the occupying forces on the island.

Twelve years after the murder, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of the murder and awarded monetary compensation to his family. Solomos's heroic act and self-sacrifice inspired many artists and sensitized the world public opinion. Today, 12 years later, none of the killers of Tassos Isaac and Solomos Solomos have been punished.