ficers or during identity checks or raids in their shelters. The vast majority of those arrested are released after one or two days. In all of the cases either the coast guard or police officers are alleged to have perpetrated ill-treatment, inflicting physical injury or psychological trauma on individual arrestees for the purpose of deterrence, terror and humiliation. The allegations of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which are documented in this report, raise concerns about the systematic use of physical force by law enforcement officers against migrants and refugees. There seems to be a failure of the authorities to ensure that legal provisions guaranteeing the protection of migrants and refugees during arrest are implemented. The scale of allegations concerning police violence indicates a widespread pattern rather than a few isolated incidents. Furthermore, this pattern suggests a wider policy of repression and fear executed by law enforcement officers, which is aimed at discouraging undocumented migrants and refugees from coming to the port cities and trying to reach Europe through these “gates”. As one of the interviewees told us: “They want to force us out of Patras!” 5 Fascist graffiti at the southern port of Patras 6 Such treatment constitutes a serious abuse of the hierarchical power relationship between state officials and the sans-papiers and refugees, which is likely to persist as a result of the ongoing “climate of impunity within law enforcement agencies”. 6 These abuses are combined with the absence of access to asylum in Greece, access to information, inadequate reception conditions (housing, nutrition, medical treatment etc.), the lack of humanitarian aid and the total deprivation of rights faced by migrants and refugees in Patras (but also in Athens and other places all over Greece), which have further contributed to their dehumanisation, marginalisation and exclusion. Migrants and refugees are being targeted and ill-treated by state officials precisely because they are migrants and refugees – and also because they are foreigners (“ξενοι”). A press release from the Racist Violence Recording Network on February 21, 2012 highlighted the overlaps between racist and police violence. Over a period of three months (October - December 2011), the Network cited eight incidents of racist attacks by state agents in Patras: „I have to change my luck!“ 5 Interview held on May 4, 2012 6 CPT 2008 “There is a distinct category consisting of 18 incidents, where police and racist violence are interlinked (10 in Athens and 8 in Patras). These incidents concern duty police officers, who resorted to illegal acts and violent practices while carrying out routine operations. There are a few recorded cases of migrants and asylum seekers taken to police stations, where they were detained and maltreated during a certain number of hours, as well as cases where legal documents were destroyed during these operations.” 7 We see a clear relationship between the social discrimination of migrants in Greece, racist violence and police violence, which reinforce each other by creating through action and propaganda a category of marginalised and rightless non-citizens, as “the other” or an “enemy within”. Bearing in mind that hundreds of migrants and refugees are trapped in Greece, and particularly in Patras, we hope that this report will contribute to a better understanding of their situation in Patras as well as the roots of racism in this city. “You who are looking at us now, once will get hungry as we are now!” In the early 1990s, this was the parole of the protesting employees of Peiraiki Patraiki factory, when it closed its doors. It has been once Greece’s largest textile producer owning also factories in Sudan. 1.1. Methodology Pro Asyl in co-operation with the Greek Council For Refugees, conducted research in the port city of Patras during April (2.4-5.4) and May (11.5-15.5) 2012 8. During these missions the team visited various sites, where undocumented migrants and asylum seekers live while “in transit”. 9 Thirty-one individual interviews were conducted with victims of ill-treatment by state agents. Eleven of them were unaccompanied minors. Anonymity was a crucial precondition for the report, in order to protect the interviewees. Interviews were held in Dari, Arabic, English and French. In addition, the team held group discussions with larger numbers of migrants and refugees as well as meetings with staff from the NGO Praksis, the Greek Red Cross and the UNHCR, and the solidarity group “Kinisi” – Motion for the defence of refugees’ and migrants’ rights – who work with migrants and refugees in Patras, in order to confirm the information collected. Because of the delicate subject matter, the precarious living conditions of the migrants and refugees in Patras, the transitory nature of the makeshift camps they live in, their permanent fear and feeling of being persecuted, the lack of any institutional protection, the high level of mistrust expressed by some of them towards the team (and any “outsiders” in general), and the difficult environment in which these interviews were conducted (outside areas), the team recommends that the physical and psychological violence to which migrants have been subjected by the Greek authorities both inside and outside the detention centres in Patras warrants further investigation and documentation. This report contains the exact testimony of the victims themselves. Dozens of other migrants interviewed by the team also confirmed that few migrants and refugees in Patras have not been victims of police violence and ill-treatment, at least once and often on repeated occasions. The large number of cases and the similarity between so many of these testimonies suggests a systematic pattern of violence. 7 http://www.1againstracism.gr/index.php/en/component/k2/ itemlist/category/26-racist-violence-recording-network 8 The Team consisted of two lawyers (M. Tzeferakou and K. Tsapopoulou), a social anthropologist / interpreter for Farsi and an interpreter for Arabic. 9 We visited the following places: Peiraiki Patraiki Factory, olive fields near Rio