The difficulties in gaining access to the asylum system are exceeded only by the rapidity that one can be rejected by the system. A 21-year-old Kurd from Kirkuk who asked for asylum while detained at Samos (and who was deported from Greece to Turkey and from Turkey to northern Iraq, where he was tortured),226 was denied asylum before he even knew that his application for asylum had been filed. He never received a red card or notification of his denial: I asked for asylum in Samos, ....but they sent me from Samos to immigration in Athens before giving me a red card. I was in handcuffs on the ferry the whole time from Samos to Athens. I was in immigration detention in Athens. The lawyer Marianna came to the immigration detention center to apply for asylum, but instead of giving me a red card they gave me a deportation paper to leave the country in 30 days.227 Seeking Asylum in Athens—Petrou Ralli Every Sunday morning, hundreds of people line up on the street outside Petrou Ralli in the hope of being one of the 300 chosen weekly to be given an appointment for a firstinstance asylum interview. Human Rights Watch walked the length of the line early one Sunday morning in June 2008 and watched as the selection process took place. We estimated that about 1,000 people were lined up that morning. A police official also walked down the line talking to some of the people in the queue, and picking a relative few along the line. He then included as well some of the earliest arrivals at the front of the line to round out the lucky chosen ones allowed to file asylum applications and to come back for their first-instance interviews. There are many more efficient, fair, and accessible ways to organize the lodging of asylum applications, but Greece forces this weekly cattle call that adds to the widespread sense among asylum seekers of disrespect and deterrence regarding the filing of asylum claims. An Iraqi school teacher said, “The line at Petrou Ralli is to humiliate us. It is there to make us jump like monkeys. Why can’t they organize this in a dignified way?”228 226 See above, Deportations from Turkey. 227 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-23), Athens, May 28, 2008. 228 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-37), Athens, June 4, 2008. Stuck in a Revolving Door 90