and specified that the visits to the two facilities would be "for a few minutes" and "without discussion with detainees."1 Following the visits to Fylakio-Kyprinou and Samos, Human Rights Watch wrote to Brigadier General Constantinos Kordatos, commander of Hellenic Police Headquarters Aliens’ Division, saying, “It is not possible to make any meaningful assessment of detention conditions without the opportunity to talk with detainees or to spend more than a few minutes walking through a facility,” and again requested permission to visit more facilities and to be able to interview detainees privately.2 Following the second letter, the authorities gave Human Rights Watch permission to visit the detention facility for boys at Amigdeleza3 and the detention facility at Petrou Ralli and allowed more time for us to speak with detainees. All of the non-Iraqis interviewed in Turkey were detained—24 in Edirne and 14 in Kırklareli. All 11 of the Iranians interviewed were in Turkey. The interviews at Edirne and Kırklareli were conducted in complete privacy, outdoors in courtyard areas without the presence of guards, police, or other authorities and each interview took as long as we wanted, in some cases for an hour or more. Human Rights Watch was particularly careful in questioning people who claimed to be Iraqi to ensure that they were truthful about their nationality; we are satisfied that all those listed as Iraqi in these statistics and in this report are, in fact, Iraqi nationals. The primary researcher for this report has conducted extensive interviews with Iraqi refugees and displaced people inside Iraq and in Turkey, Jordan, Iran, and Kuwait. The Arabic interpreter lived and studied in Baghdad. We asked specific questions and assessed accent in order to test those claiming to be Iraqi. We are less confident that detainees identifying themselves as Burmese, Somalis, and Palestinians were who they said they were; in fact, one or two detained “Palestinians” may have been Iraqis. For the purposes of this report, the actual nationalities of these 1 Letter from Police Brigadier General Constantinos P. Kordatos, Commander of Hellenic Police Headquarters, Aliens Division, Secretariat of Public Order, Ministry of Interior, to Human Rights Watch, May 23, 2008, in Greek. On file with Human Rights Watch. 2 Email from Human Rights Watch to Hellenic Police Headquarters, Aliens’ Division, May 23, 2008. 3 Because Human Rights Watch is publishing a separate report on unaccompanied children in Greece we will not report on the Amegdeleza detention facility for boys in this report. 17 Human Rights Watch November 2008