the three months I was there. I never watched TV. I didn’t know they had a TV. I never had any visitors. We would eat in the same place we slept. There was no place to sit, except on the bed.165 Hitting and slapping by guards appears to be the norm, in part because of the lack of other means of communication (or the will to try to communicate with the detainees through other means). This same former detainee continued: The guards at Fylakio treated us the same as at the police station, mostly slapping and pushing us. If there was a fight or a problem between the detainees, the police would beat us very hard. They would beat us to punish us. Another form of punishment was to prevent us from calling our families or denying us food.166 The gap between guards and detainees was not only exacerbated by the inability to communicate verbally, but also by various forms of treatment that made the detainees feel as though they were being treated like animals. For example, this same detainee observed, “Whenever the guards came into the room, they would wear a mask and plastic gloves to protect them from germs.”167 Venna168 Human Rights Watch did not have permission to visit Venna, but visited the facility anyway. We were able to conduct half of one interview in a room used by the guards before the authorities checked with their superiors and stopped the interview. Before being asked to leave, Human Rights Watch observed that the facility looks like an old warehouse divided into smaller rooms, each holding 30 to 35 persons. Each room has a small window about 80 by 40 cm. The facility was dark and very hot with poor air circulation and many of the detainees were sitting only in their underwear. Before the authorities stopped the interview, Human Rights Watch was talking with a 16-year-old unaccompanied boy from Afghanistan who had been in the facility for two months and 165 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-14), Athens, May 26, 2008. 166 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-14), Athens, May 26, 2008. 167 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-14), Athens, May 26, 2008. 168 Although Venna is in the northeast of Greece (between Komotini and Alexandroupoli) and for purposes of this paper part of the Evros Region, it is part of the Rodopi Prefecture rather than the Evros Prefecture. 71 Human Rights Watch November 2008