Roughly 200 to 300 protesters joined the march on Saturday, carrying signs that were also pro-Palestine and critical of the US and Israel.<\/p>\n
Chants included: “Say it loud, say it clear, British bases out of here.”<\/p>\n
The territory, kept by the UK, covers about 98 sq miles (254 sq km) and is even patrolled by a separate, special police force.<\/p>\n
These Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) are a lingering point of contention while also being highly interwoven into the island and a source of employment.<\/p>\n
They encompass communities well beyond the fenced-off airbase of RAF Akrotiri, on the island’s southern tip.<\/p>\n
“I think that we’d be a lot safer without them here,” said Shona Muir, holding up the British Bases Out banner with Natasha.<\/p>\n
“Their presence alone here makes us more of a target.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence told the BBC: “Our bases in Cyprus play a crucial role in supporting the safety of British citizens and our allies in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East.”<\/p>\n
“Just this week, we have flown Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets on sorties around the region, shooting down Iranian drones and defending innocent civilians from Iran’s indiscriminate attacks,” they added.<\/p>\n
The Cypriot government has been at pains to stress that it’s a UK base, not Cyprus, that was targeted by a drone and that Cyprus has no involvement in the ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n
A UK foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, RAF Akrotiri has long supported operations in the Middle East and, more recently, reportedly been used for surveillance flights over Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roughly 200 to 300 protesters joined the march on Saturday, carrying signs that were also pro-Palestine and critical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-464059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}