people interviewed also complained of insults, particularly racist insults, proffered by staff and the use of physical violence by guards.53 Manfred Nowak, the former UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, visited the Fylakio detention center within days of Szymanski’s visit. The situation he describes there on October 12, 2010 would have been essentially the same as on the day that Szymanski was present: Due to the high occupancy over the last months, the center was in a very poor state at the time of the visit. When entering the building the detainees became very agitated and initially the officers were reluctant to open the cells. The conditions of detention were extremely poor. There were not enough beds for each detainee forcing many to share beds or sleep on the floor. The beds, blankets and pillows were very dirty. The sanitary installations were in a very poor state with dirty walls, doors and water running out the washrooms and toilets. The cells were humid and the floors dirty. The cells were poorly lit, many ceiling lamps were broken and there was almost no natural light. There was little space between the bunk beds allowing detainees to move around. They had no access to a yard and outdoor exercise. The semi-open cell for the new arrivals was in the worst state. The bathroom appeared not to be cleaned for a long time. The toilets were clogged causing water and feces to stand in the washroom. The detainees defecated in the corridor of the washroom and the dirty water ran out of the bathroom in the sleeping cell causing unbearable smell. Consequently, many new arrivals preferred to sleep outside.54 During that same time, Nowak also visited a number of police stations in Evros and found that they appeared to operate almost exclusively as migrant detention facilities rather than as conventional police stations. In all but one of the police stations he visited he found that foreign nationals were “detained in overcrowded, dirty cells, with inadequate sanitary facilities, no or insufficient access to outdoor exercise and inadequate medical 53 M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, judgment of January 21, no. 30696/09, http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=880339&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumb er&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649 , (accessed August 22, 2011), para.160. 54 Mission to Greece Report, March 4, 2011, Appendix paras. 40 – 41. THE EU’S DIRTY HANDS 22