Greece has violated Article 2 and Article 3 regarding the ill-treatment or torture by the police. 39 On March 31, 2011 the Law 3938/2011 “Establishment of Bureau for Addressing Incidents of Arbitrariness and Other Provisions” was published. According to this Law, the Bureau directly responds to the Minister of Citizen Protection. Its competence is the collection, recording, evaluation and submission of cases to the competent authorities for investigation (Article 1 (1)). The Law provides for the establishment of a three-member Committee in the Bureau, composed of a retired judge of the Supreme Court as its president and a retired prosecutor of the Supreme Court or Appeal Courts’ as well as the State’s Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection. The threemember Committee would be tasked with the 39 F  or instance, see: - Makaratzis v. Greece (2004), where the Court found that the Greek Police had not carried out a proper investigation into the basic facts of the incident; - Celniku v Greece (2007), where the Court criticised the fact that the investigation was carried out by officers working in the same department as the incriminated officers; - Zelilof v Greece (2007), where the Court questioned the quality and impartiality of the internal investigations carried out by the Thessaloniki Internal Investigations Department after a citizen was injured by police bullets: the internal police investigation relied on the statements made by the incriminated officers and the results of a forensic medical investigation were not taken into account; - Alsayed Allaham v Greece (2007), where the Court found that an ill-treatment complaint made by a citizen against the police had not been properly investigated by the Prosecutor and Court; - Petropoulu-Tsakiris v Greece (2008), where the Court found that no forensic-medical investigation had been carried out into the injuries of the complainant and that the internal investigation had not been carried out promptly; - Stefanou v. Greece (2010), where the Court identified a number of shortcomings in the investigation(such as that the the investigation was carried out by a police officer from the same Directorate responsible for the police station of the alleged perpetrators) and found a violation of article 3 in the case of ill-treatement of a 16 years old boy by police officers; - Galostkin v. Greece (2010), where the Court found that the Greek authorities failed to carry out an adequate investigation in the case of illtreatment of the applicant; - Zontul v. Greece (2012), where the Court found a violation of article 3 for the torture of an asylum seeker in june 2001. In particular the Court noted that the the Greek criminal justice system, as applied in that case, had not a deterrent effect such as to prevent the torture of which the applicants 18 responsibility to evaluate the reliability of each complaint or reported incident, to assess whether they fall under the Bureau’s competence and to issue a decision to either submit the case to the competent authorities for investigation or to reject the complaint as inadmissible (Article 1 (3)). The above-mentioned office has still not started functioning, since the necessary Presidential Degree has not been published yet. Furthermore, the establishment of this Bureau does not fulfil the criteria for an independent and effective examination of allegations of police violence, since – among others – the Bureau is under the direct responsibility of the Minister of Citizen Protection and does not have the authority to examine such allegations except from a first ‘admissibility’ evaluation. 40 Thus the “climate of impunity within law enforcement agencies”, as observed by the CPT 2008, is still persistent today. In this climate of impunity – lacking an effective, impartial and prompt investigation mechanism against allegations of ill-treatment by state agents – the vast majority of the alleged victims of ill-treatment in Patras are afraid of filing a complaint of ill-treatment, either before the police authorities or the public prosecutor. Given the precarious legal and social status of migrants in Patras, nobody can expect from the victims to file a complaint against the police. 40 Concerns also remain over the effectiveness of the Bureau, since the main function of the Committee is to evaluate the admissibility of the complaints and if it finds them admissible, to forward them to the competent disciplinary bodies for investigation. In addition, its own powers to carry out investigations are very limited, since a member of the Committee will be able to conduct investigations only in those cases which the Law categorizes as “serious complaints or incidents”, subject to the discretion of the Minister of Citizens’ Protection, and only in relation to the disciplinary aspects of such cases. Hellenic League for Human Rights 2012: http://www.hlhr. gr/detailsen.php?id=668 For further analysis, see: Amnesty International public statement, Greece: Amnesty International calls on the government to create a genuinely independent and effective police complaints mechanism, Index: EUR 25/011/2009, 21 December 2009: http://www.amnesty.org/ en/library/asset/EUR25/011/2009/en/83c0ccdc-62a3-4ac4a58a-c1c35e1434a2/eur250112009en.pdf; and National Commission for Human Rights: Comments on the bill by the Ministry of Citizen Protection “Bureau for Addressing Incidents of Arbitrariness and other provisions“. http://www.nchr.gr/category.php?category_id=231 “I arrived in Patras at the time of the oranges!” “Oh god, your hell is tomorrow but    I burn today, why?” 3.3 Research findings Victims are male, both adults and minors, from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and Morocco. Most As we have noted before and based on the fin- of them are undocumented migrants or holdings of our missions, we have come to the ders of a deportation order. Some of them are conclusion that the violence and ill-treatment “pink card” holders – among them are also alleby state officials (Police and Port Authorities) to ged torture victims in their countries of origin. which migrants are subjected is systematic and Reported incidents of police violence gewidespread. The victims are targeted purely nerally take place during identity checks and because they are foreigners. There are specific raids on the places where migrants and refupatterns of violence used, which in some cases gees find a temporary shelter consequently leacould even amount to torture or other forms of ding to their arrest, or in the streets - wherever degrading, humiliating or cruel treatment. The and whenever they are seen walking or hanperpetrators often make racist comments. The ging out. In most of the cases of ill-treatment high number of allegations of violence by state reported to us, the victims were first beaten agents also indicates a pattern of a wider poli- or insulted by the perpetrators and then were cy of repression and of deterrence. asked to show their documents. Even then, no In most of the cases reported to us, the formal legal procedure was followed. In other perpetrators are police officers and agents of cases, the police beat or humiliated migrants the Special Operations Units of the Hellenic without even asking for any documents or arCoast Guard (KEA). 41 resting them. It is clear, that document checks and arrest procedures in Patras lack any legal safeguards. 41 For details on the Hellenic Coast Guard / KEA, see: http://www.hcg.gr/node/156 19