Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area As fundamental human rights, including the right to life and freedom from torture of individuals may be at stake, the responsibility of decision-making must be taken by an appropriate body and adequately qualified officials. In this regard, the Greek system is confusing regarding the actual role of the border guards. In order to avoid "prescreening" by border officials, Amnesty International recommends that the role of border authorities should be restricted to registering asylum applications and forwarding them and relevant information to competent authorities. As far as training is concerned, the organization recommends that Greece ensure its practice is in compliance with the provisions of Recommendation n° R (98) 15 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the training of officials who first come into contact with asylum-seekers, in particular at border points. Another incident involved 106 persons, who arrived on the island of Crete on 1 April 2005. While refusing requests by representatives of local authorities, lawyers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including members of Amnesty International’s section in Greece, to meet the people in question and offer assistance, the Deputy Minister, Christos Markoyiannakis, is alleged to have stated that they would be expelled immediately. At the same time the Chania Police Chief, Antonis Proestakis, allegedly announced the introduction of a new administrative policy of immediate expulsion of all undocumented migrants arriving on Crete, effective immediately. However, the people in question were allowed to remain on the island and on 7 April, one local authority representative, one lawyer and two NGO representatives were able to meet them. The foreigners reportedly stated to the lawyer, Demetrios Fourakis, that they were Palestinians and that they intended to seek asylum in Greece. On the evening of 10 April they were escorted by the police onto a ship bound for Athens, where they were taken to the Attica Aliens Department’s detention centre and other police stations in the area of Amnesty International 5 October 2005 16 Attica, and detained until the following day. On 12 April members of Amnesty International’s section in Greece were allowed to speak with detainees in the Attica Aliens Department. They reported that only two of the approximately 30 people held there could speak English and that no interpreter was available at the Centre. The organization’s members also reported poor conditions of detention and allegations of ill-treatment by police officers. The detainees had not been informed of their rights or of the reasons for their detention. When representatives of other NGOs and lawyers subsequently requested to meet the detainees in order to be able to provide information about their rights to them, the police officers in charge refused to allow them access to the detention area, claiming they had received orders from their superiors to block such access. It appears that all 106 detainees were instead escorted onto a ship the same afternoon and expelled to Egypt. Amnesty International wrote to the authorities expressing concerns that should this account of events be true, the rights of those detained from 1 to 12 April were systematically violated and asking for precise information about the authorities’ actions in this case, but had not received a reply by September. On 16 August, the organization received information that another 95 people were expelled to Egypt without being given access to the asylum process, after their boat was shipwrecked off the coast of Crete ten days earlier. The secrecy surrounding the authorities’ practices throughout the different stages of the asylum determination process is a source of concern about the degree to which human rights standards are upheld during the process. During Amnesty International’s visit to the country, access to some of the detention centres on the island of Mytilini was denied, while in other detention centres and police stations (Vrysika, Didimoticho, intermittently in Amygdaleza) officers refused to remain outside hearing range throughout the AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005