Going to the toilet, you would step on people. You had to crawl over people to go to the toilet. People were even sleeping there, it was so crowded. The guards at Samos were not good, but they treated us better than the Turkish police.182 Despite the obvious improvement in conditions between the old and new facilities on Samos, detainees in the new facility alleged that certain members of the staff beat and abused them (though they often praised others for their kindness).183 Human Rights Watch visited the facility on Thursday, May 29. On Tuesday of the same week the authorities released a “Rwandan” man whose arm was broken after detainees allege he was beaten by a guard. The guard was new, and detainees did not know his name. The incident occurred during “count,” which is held on the basketball court periodically to line up and count the detainees, at which time they are often humiliated, slapped, and beaten. A North African man also released that Tuesday, told Human Rights Watch: Most of the problems are on the basketball court. They made us sit down and stand up. They would count and then count again, sometimes 10 times a day. We sometimes waited around on the court two hours, and then they would call us back again. People would get angry with the count and how they were being treated. Sometimes Yiorgos, a guy who cleans the mess hall, would beat us in front of the guards. They would not stop him. And some of the police were bad, including the one who broke the arm of the black man from Rwanda. Many came down and saw what the guard did. We were down in the basketball court area. The guy with the broken arm did nothing wrong. A guard hit him with a stick because he didn’t respond to the count order. When the police broke the guy’s arm, the lawyer could not find the guy at the hospital. The police hid him from the lawyer. The police sent him to Athens on Tuesday.184 Although Human Rights Watch was not able to locate the “Rwandan” (a number of people expressed doubt about his nationality), the same incident was described to us 182 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-23), Athens, May 28, 2008. 183 B-10 also testified similarly about conditions at the new Samos facility, as well as those with whom Human Rights Watch spoke casually during our visit to the facility. 184 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-29), Samos (but not in the detention center), May 30, 2008. 75 Human Rights Watch November 2008