6 ENTER AT YOUR PERIL Lives put at risk at the gate of europe © Angelos Tzortzinis indiscriMinate sweeps Leading to push-backs Being pushed back to Turkey does not only happen to people who have just crossed the border, but also to those who have been in Greece for years and have established family ties there. In addition to tightening border controls in the Evros region in August 2012, the Greek authorities also intensified operations in urban areas to round up and detain irregular migrants. Amnesty International July 2013 index: eur 25/007/2013 © Angelos Tzortzinis many migrants being detained. D., who had lived in Greece since 2008, described how he was picked up by police at the car wash where he was working in August 2012. He told Amnesty International that he was registered as an asylum-seeker in Greece, but had left his asylum-seeker card at home on the day he was apprehended: “I told the police I had this red card at home (asylum-seeker card) and that I had a wife and child here but they didn’t listen to me; they punched me in the stomach and pushed me into a bus. There were about 25 others in the bus – from Sudan, Senegal, Bangladesh... We drove for about eight hours. Then they held us in a very bad place. Then at 1am, they took us in small cars to the river at the border with Turkey. I begged them not to send me to Turkey; I told them about my document, my wife and child; I asked them to check their computers. But they told me to shut up.” above: Police officers stop migrants in order to see their residence permits in central Athens, Greece. Large scale sweep operations by the police from August 2012 resulted in DETENTION “What kind of a law can keep us here for a year? I am not a murderer, not a criminal. I am just a migrant. I just came here for a good life.” a young man from afghanistan detained in fylakio immigration detention centre. Extensive and indiscriminate use of detention is a major plank in Greece’s migration policy. Greek law allows for the detention of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers for up to 18 months. A man from Guinea in one of the large detention facilities in the Evros region said: “I have been here nine months, they say they can keep me another nine. Then they will give me a paper to leave Greece in seven days. How can I arrange to leave Greece in seven days? I cannot even make a phone call here. They will just arrest me again.”