On 18 July 2005, the police used excessive force against demonstrators and journalists at a picket by striking lorry drivers. In 2004, the media was stifled by the government of the Republic of Cyprus to broadcast programmes against the Annan Plan for Cyprus. European Commissioner Günter Verheugen was refused to air-time on any Greek Cypriot TV channel because if he was not refused, he would present arguments supporting the plan. In 2007, then President Tassos Papadopoulos "personally intervened" to force the dismissal of the press attaché at the Cyprus High Commission in London, Soteris Georgallis, because he had attended to a book presentation which was addressed by a critic of Papadopoulos, Takis Hadjidemetriou. Kyriakos Pierides reported in 2007 that the "pro-government political and commercial pressures are a constant factor inhibiting the work of the media there". In 2008, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, in a report written by the Turkish Cypriot Human Rights Foundation and the Turkish Cypriot Journalists’ Union reported that the government of the Republic of Cyprus were violating the rights of Turkish Cypriots on the freedom of press. It added that the change in Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation's broadcasting frequency prevented many Turkish Cypriot TV channels broadcasting in Northern Cyprus, thus violating the freedom of the speech. The World Press Freedom Index ranked Cyprus 45 in 2007, 31 in 2008, 25 in 2009, and ranked it back down to 45 in 2010. In 2016 it was ranked 27th. Prostitution is rife in Cyprus, and the island has been criticized for its role in the sex trade as one of the main routes of human trafficking from Eastern Europe. In May 2011, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said that rejected asylum-seekers were kept for too long in detention and inconvenient conditions. In May 2005, the KISA accused the police of violating the law and the human rights of asylum seekers by carrying out illegal arrests, detentions, and deportations. Another non-governmental organization (NGO) reported in 2005 that the police deported long term residents, as long as 11 years. A large number of Romanian nationals were subjected to forced labor in the country in 2009. In August 2009 the UNHCR complained through the media that a Kurdish child suffering from a terminal congenital condition was denied government funding to travel abroad for medical treatment because of his refugee status, in contravention of the country's refugee law, which provides refugees access to the same medical treatment as Cypriots and other EU citizens. detention by occupying the water-tank tower of the prison in Nicosia and a hunger strike in Limassol.