Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area of the police station without causing damage or endangering his physical integrity”, to another police officer “beating him inadvertently, once, on the back of the head, without causing damage or endangering his physical integrity” and to a third police officer “slapping him on the right cheek”. 2.5 Excessive use of force and persisting ill-treatment of Albanian nationals The organization has received a number of further allegations relating to ill-treatment of migrants detained by Greek police. Among these, an exceptionally large number of the alleged victims are Albanian migrants working or seeking work in Greece. Many were arrested by police and military forces operating in border districts as they sought to enter Greece clandestinely on foot by mountain paths. Others were migrants who had found work or seasonal labour, and who were detained in the course of routine checking of documents or in organized police round-ups of irregular migrants (colloquially referred to as “sweeps”), before being forcibly deported (summarily expelled) by the Greek authorities to Albania. 70 In February 2001 the Deputy Ombudsman criticized the summary expulsion of Albanians in the latter circumstances as illegal and humiliating: “When an immigrant has settled in a place, there is a deportation procedure that is regulated by law. Summary expulsion is illegal.”71 In addition to its concerns about allegations of police ill-treatment, Amnesty International has also raised with the Greek authorities its concerns with regard to several incidents in which Greek law enforcement officials are alleged to have used firearms against unarmed Albanian citizens who had entered Greece clandestinely. Both the above areas of concern 38 have previously been documented in the 2002 joint Amnesty International/ International Helsinki Federation report, Greece: In the Shadow of Impunity – Ill-treatment and the misuse of firearms. Since the publication of that report, Amnesty International has learned of at least three incidents in which Greek border guards or other police officers allegedly resorted to the use of firearms against Albanian citizens, apparently in violation of international law and standards. Principle 9 of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials prohibits the use of firearms against persons, except “in selfdefence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”72 The organization notes the introduction of new Greek legislation on the use of firearms (Law 3169 of July 2003), which was intended to clarify and limit the circumstances in which law enforcement officials can resort to arms, in line with international law and standards, but it remains concerned about the lack of safeguards guaranteeing the implementation of this legislation. In the most serious of these incidents, an 18year-old Albanian national was shot dead by a border guard. Vullnet Bytyçi, from the village of Muç-Has in the Has district of Albania, was shot on the evening of 23 September 2003 while clandestinely crossing the border into 72 70 This procedure is carried out on the basis of a “Re-admission clause” under a Police Cooperation Agreement beteen Greece and Albania. 71 Eleftherotypia, 5 February 2001. Amnesty International 5 October 2005 UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in September 1990. AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005