A/HRC/34/56/Add.1 III. Realizing cultural rights in Cyprus: specific issues A. Impact of the situation in Cyprus on cultural rights 20. The current political situation creates many obstacles to the enjoyment of cultural rights without discrimination, as well as an over-politicization of cultural heritage and cultural rights-related issues on all sides. 21. Crossing between the north and the south is possible through seven official crossing points (see A/HRC/31/21, para. 30). However, restrictions or obstacles to freedom of movement create many impediments to accessing and enjoying cultural heritage and to meeting and engaging with people from the other side, including through joint social gatherings and cultural events. 22. While there are some positive developments thanks to the peace talks, exchanges and discussions between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots seem to take place only exceptionally outside official circles. Sporadic exchanges take place in venues such as the Home for Cooperation, situated in the buffer zone, or when people visit their former villages and take part in cultural or religious events there. 23. That division hampers the ability of civil society to make connections across the island. Academics, intellectuals and cultural heritage professionals who would like to exchange or collaborate across the Green Line are unable to do so. For example, in the south, cultural heritage experts are worried about reportedly illegal excavations in the north, with little possibility of obtaining information about the work undertaken and the results achieved. There is a need for structures in which cultural heritage professionals from across Cyprus could come together, share information and cooperate pending a solution. 24. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that discourses of exclusion, hatred or superiority are still purveyed in some quarters on all sides. There are worrying reports of a rise in incidents in the south of racially motivated verbal and physical abuse by right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi groups against persons of foreign origin, Roma, human rights defenders and Turkish Cypriots (see CCPR/C/CYP/CO/4, para. 7, and CERD/C/CYP/CO/17-22, para. 12). The Special Rapporteur expresses particular concern about attacks on cultural events, artists and sites. She notes claims that impunity for such acts is common, due to a lack of prosecution, and that police records may not reflect the extent of racist crime in Cyprus. The police recorded 119 racially motivated incidents between 2005 and 2014. 2 She also notes the assertion of the Government that all such incidents are being investigated and trusts that the results will be acted upon and made public. 25. There are also concerns about the rise of various forms of extremism, including extreme nationalism in both the south and the north, and various voices, including religious leaders, expressed concern that religious fundamentalism could become an issue. 26. Proactive cultural policies must promote the voices of tolerance, present all over Cyprus, and guard against the voices of intolerance. They must insist on the right of all people to express freely their own complex identities, manifest their own cultural practices, have access to and enjoy their own cultural heritage and that of others, and benefit from as many spaces as possible to encounter and interact with each other, in all fields. B. Right to self-identification and choice of cultural references 1. Beyond bicommunalism 27. According to article 2 (1) of the 1960 Constitution, “the Greek Community comprises all citizens of the Republic who are of Greek origin and whose mother tongue is Greek or who share Greek cultural traditions or who are members of the Greek Orthodox 2 6 European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, “Report on Cyprus”, June 2016, paras. 36 and 42.