The guards were not good. They shouted at us. The guards spoke only Greek. They didn’t even speak English. The only way they had to communicate was by beating us. The only thing asked of me was where I came from. I said I was Palestinian. Nothing else. 158 A different 28-year-old Iraqi from Baghdad was arrested and held at two different police stations at Orestiada for a total of two weeks, where the police did not give him adequate blankets, clothing, or hot water. He added, “The police treated us very badly. They kicked the food, they insulted us. They didn’t beat us hard. Sometimes they hit us with a baton. Other guards would watch the hitting, it was the normal thing. There were about 17 teenagers mixed in with the men.”159 A number of the migrants who told Human Rights Watch about being summarily expelled from Greece at the Evros River mentioned the police station at Soufli as the place where they would be held for a few days until a sufficient number were collected before the authorities took them to the border and summarily expelled them. 160 Detainees described it as dark and dingy: “Soufli was very bad,” said a Turkoman Iraqi from Kirkuk. “I stayed there for 20 days and didn’t once see the sun. We were only allowed one or two minutes to go to the toilet.”161 In its assessment of detention conditions in 2007, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) found that conditions it visited in Greek border guard stations “were, in general, unacceptable even for short periods. The cells at Isaakio and Neo Himoni had poor access to natural light and ventilation, and the detainees were provided with dirty blankets and slept on filthy mattresses on the floor. The toilet facilities were dirty and, in some cases, out of order.” The CPT found “extreme 158 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-22), Athens, May 28, 2008. The day after this interview when Human Rights Watch stopped at his place to talk with him again, we were told that he had left for Patras in a fourth attempt to leave Greece. 159 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-14), Athens, May 26, 2008. An Algerian migrant at the Edirne detention facility in Turkey described Orestiada as “something between a prison and a guest place.” Interview B-107, Edirne, June 11, 2008. 160 Human Rights Watch interviews consistent with the quoted testimonies about the jail at Soufli include B-19, B-22, and E158. 161 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-19), Athens, May 27, 2008. 69 Human Rights Watch November 2008