·A man had been detained for six months and said he had no information about his case. He said his friend had been held for seven months without information. ·An Iraqi detainee wanted to be deported but did not know how to speed the process up. The NPM explained the deportation procedure to him. ·A detainee said that he felt dizzy and explained his medical history. The NPM said he should speak to a doctor. After about 10-15 minutes, NPM staff approached the centre director to tell him that detainees were telling them about problems that the centre and social services should be addressing. They intended to recommend that the centre hire more social workers – there were currently two – and that detainees should be provided with more information about their cases. The centre director said that the police did not have official access to detainees’ files but they did ask the immigration services to send updates on their detention status. The senior director of the Athens immigration detention facilities intervened in the NPM’s discussion with the centre director and said that the latter’s role was simply to guard people, not do any more than that. The NPM gave the names of some detainees to the centre director, who said that his staff would talk to them. There was a separate wing in Petrou Ralli for people with illnesses or other vulnerabilities. There were about 10-15 men on this wing. Many men were sitting or lying quietly in their cells. Some detainees complained of the cold and asked for more blankets. One individual had been detained for two months and another for four months. This wing also housed a detainee who was suspected of being involved in terrorist activity. There was a visitors’ room off the main corridor comprised of metal sections with a screen in-between the detainee and the visitor. It was a dirty and unwelcoming space (see appendix one). Other than relatives and lawyers, mainly from the Greek Council for Refugees, who visit them there, women are also visited and supported by volunteers’ groups such as Mov[42] and the House of Women.[43] Women’s section As we entered the residential corridor, we saw two of the women we had met the previous day at the airport detention centre. The women were taken to the women’s floor, which was less crowded than the men’s area, with two or three women in each cell. Some of the cells were empty. The layout was the same as the men’s cells but the atmosphere was calmer. The cell doors were kept open all day so that women could move around. There was some graffiti in the cells but most of it looked like children’s drawings. It was cold and damp and the women were sitting on their beds - they seemed bored. The centre director said that women detainees had two hours a day in the yard, one in the morning and one in the evening, but men had much less time because there were too many of them. It was not clear how long men were able to go outside during our visit but the CPT (2017a: 33) had noted periods of little more than 15 minutes. The outdoor yard for women was bare and somewhat bleak (see appendix one). [42] https://tomov.gr/category/dikaiomata/metanastries/ [43]https://tinyurl.com/y4sbpxyx 27