a deserted house with no electricity or water. To shave or bathe I have to
go to a friend’s house.297
Disabled Iraqi Red-Card Holders
Particularly vulnerable Iraqi red-card holders, such as people with disabilities and the
mentally ill, told Human Rights Watch that they received no assistance. A disabled 47year-old red-card holder from Baghdad who has been living in Greece since 1996 and
has not gone before the Appeals Committee in 13 years of being an asylum seeker or
received any government assistance for his disability, said that he came for a better life
for his three children, but that they have no future in Greece:
The problem is that they didn’t finish school here. We got no help from
the government. My oldest child stopped going to school at age nine and
started working. I can’t work. [His fingers are cut off.] We left the jail of
Iraq and came to another jail in Greece.298
Human Rights Watch interviewed a middle-aged Iraqi man who appeared to suffer from
depression and other mental illnesses. He was deported from Sweden, but his wife and
children are still living there. He said, “They had my fingerprints.”299 As he spoke he
had an empty bottle of the anti-psychotic drug, Tegretol, in his hand: “I am sick. I have
emphysema. I don’t have any money to buy medicine. I fall down in the street. I sleep in
the park. I have a red card, but they don’t give me medicine. I live in the street. I have
no money, no food.”300
Recognized Iraqi Refugees Living in Greece
Only a small number of Iraqis have been recognized as refugees in Greece because all
Iraqi asylum appeals were frozen in 2003 and not unfrozen until mid-2007 and even
then only a relatively few cases have been processed (107 Iraqis were granted asylum on
appeal in 2007).301
297
Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-19), Athens, May 27, 2008.
298
Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-57), Athens, June 4, 2008.
299
Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-69), Athens, June 4, 2008.
300
Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-69), Athens, June 4, 2008.
301
Human Rights Watch interview with Tsarbopoulos and Stefanaki, UNHCR-Athens, May 22, 2008.
Stuck in a Revolving Door
110
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