Chapter 6. ‘Searching for Azadi’118 Resisting the detention system from the inside and outside ‘The aim is to have peace. To have inmates that don’t shout, don’t resist, don’t create problems- so that they have a nice time and we a better one’, Manager of the Petrou Ralli pre-removal detention centre (Interview, 2018). Introduction I first met Manuel (pseudonym) at the airport detention facility two days after he was arrested. He was a young man from Haiti. He had lost his parents in his early years and was adopted and raised by distant members of his family in Cote d’Ivoire, from where he fled before he turned 18. He arrived on a Greek island in 2011 and was soon found homeless in Athens. Attempting to cross to France with false papers, he was arrested at the Athens International airport and was detained at the airport detention facility. He found police treatment at the centre unbearable as they would often address him as the ‘black animal’ and would not give him information about his case. He also complained about not having access to the toilets when needed. At the end of a working day in June 2012, the police came and summoned us because one of the migrants had attempted suicide. ‘It’s nothing serious’ the police officers reassured us. ‘He has just cut himself’. The police had unsuccessfully tried to mop the floor, where we saw a curled naked body lying in his own blood. It was Manuel. The officers carried him to our office and left him on the doctor’s bed, where she started treating the cuts. In the absence of a sharp object,119 he had tried to cut himself with his fingernails and he had managed to inflict wounds on both of his arms and legs. He must have spent a lot of time on it as the wounds were quite deep. According to his co-detainees, they had tried to alert the police when they realised what he was doing by banging the heavy metal doors and shouting ‘Help’ but the police did not respond in time because it was the time of a change in shifts. Some of his wounds needed stiches so we left the office that day relying on the police to take him to the hospital. We never found out what happened because that night he was Azadi means freedom in Persian. The police had confiscated all sharp objects, including plastic cutlery for fear of self-harm. The men detained in the airport detention facility ate with their hands. 118 119 176