us. The beating went on for about an hour. Then they put us on a bus and took us to a police station near the beach. Someone in civilian clothes asked us more questions about who the smuggler was and how we got there. We gave our names and nationalities. We all said that we were Palestinians. We were still in wet clothes. We spent the night on the bus in our wet clothes. They gave us no dry clothes, no food, nothing to drink, not even for the children.62 The Greek police at the border can be especially brutal when they suspect a migrant of being a smuggler. An Iraqi Kurd who the Greek police expelled across the Evros River four times gives this account: On the fourth time the Greek police beat me so much. One of the policemen recognized my face [from having been apprehended previously] and beat me so hard. He thought I was a smuggler. He beat me with a club and kicked me. One policeman did all the beating, but the others stood and watched and said nothing as he beat me. He beat me for 10 minutes. It was just beating to punish me because he thought I was a smuggler; he didn’t ask me any questions or take my money.63 Orders to Leave Rather than initiate a deportation procedure and enforce the removal of an undocumented migrant, the Greek authorities’ usual practice is to detain the migrants and upon release from detention to hand them a paper which tells them to leave the country within 30 days.64 This 30-day deadline for departure, commonly known as the “white paper,” is written only in Greek, a language few of its recipients understand. The white paper seems to carry little weight as an enforcement document as individuals who do not comply with the “deadline” are simply provided with another white paper and are not formally removed through a judicially approved deportation proceeding or otherwise. 62 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-111), Netherlands, telephone, June 24, 2008. 63 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-28), Athens, May 29, 2008. 64 Law 3386/2005 (Aliens Act), Article 76. 33 Human Rights Watch November 2008