DETENTION CONDITIONS RECOMMENDATIONS Migrants are detained in large-scale facilities and small border police stations scattered throughout northern Greece. A Human Rights Watch researcher was able to interview several detainees who had been held in the region between July and September 2009. Her findings: Human Rights Watch urges the new Greek government to undertake the following immediate steps: Fylakio-Kiprinou Detention Center The Fylakio-Kiprinou center is one of Greece’s newer migrant detention facilities and provides comparatively better conditions than the other, smaller police stations in the north. It has a doctor on staff. However, migrants complained of overcrowding, dirty conditions, and police abuse. They said that the police who work on one shift are particularly violent. Several former detainees recounted an incident involving a detainee, an Arab-speaking man, who tried to escape; he was caught and badly beaten. Detainees have access to an out-of-doors area for only a few minutes each morning and afternoon, and they are fed two meals per day, which some said was insufficient. Unaccompanied boys are detained for several months in rooms with adults. One former detainee reported that newcomers are forbidden to make phone calls during the first 10 days in custody. Soufli Police Station The station is overcrowded and filthy, people interviewed told Human Rights Watch. Two and three detainees share a single mattress. There is one working toilet for about 25 detainees. Two meals a day are served. Detainees had no access to outside areas and had not been able to make any phone calls. Human Rights Watch interviewed a young Afghan woman who said she was 16. She was held in a cell with her husband and other men, which she said was stressful and intimidating. She told Human Rights Watch that a 16-year-old Afghan boy was also detained with the adults and that there were three small children below the age of 10 held with their parents in these conditions. Venna Detention Center Conditions in this center are overcrowded and dirty, according to people who were detained there in September 2009, and the building is infested with cockroaches and mice. The facility, which looks like an old warehouse, is divided into rooms that each hold about 50 people. Detainees said they were given dirty blankets and lacked bed sheets and sufficient warm clothing. Access to an outside area is granted only every three days for two hours. Migrants are detained for several months, with unaccompanied boys kept in the same cells with adults. Detainees had no access to medical care, with some complaining of skin, eye, and other untreated health problems. HRW 20 • Publicly set out the concrete measures that the new government will take to ensure that migrants apprehended in Greek territory or at the border – whether on land or at sea – are treated in a humane and dignified manner. • Firmly guarantee that all migrants are given a meaningful opportunity to seek asylum, and are not at risk of removal that would expose them to persecution, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment (refoulement). • Rescind Presidential Decree 81/2009. Instead, create an asylum system that works, starting with initial interviews that can actually result in identifying people in need of protection, and with a prompt and fair appeal of negative decisions. This requires Greece to create: a corps of specially trained officials and competent interpreters, including specialists in interviewing children, who will be able to conduct careful, private interviews; and an independent court or tribunal to work full-time to consider appeals in a fair and timely way. • Immediately stop the practice of trucking migrants to the Evros River at night and sending them across the border secretly in small boats. • Close Venna and other substandard detention facility facilities, and open new facilities, as needed, with adequate space, privacy, cleanliness, recreation, access to the health care and legal and family visitation necessary for humane conditions of detention. • Ensure that non-nationals may be deported only under a lawful deportation order issued following full due process, including the right to an appeal before a court or tribunal, and the exhaustion of all other legal remedies; after voluntary repatriation has been offered, and if no other protection need or other legal or humanitarian basis for staying in Greece has been found. • Suspend the deportation of unaccompanied migrant children and enact new procedures that make mandatory a careful and impartial assessment of the child’s best interests before a decision is made to return a child. • Ensure full access for the UN refugee agency and relevant organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, to all migration detention facilities, Coast Guard vessels and facilities, and the border region, including entry points. HRW 21