62 without including sufficient references to the facts or to information relating to the country of origin. The grounds for rejection were usually standardized, and assumed economic motivations for leaving his/her country of origin of behalf of the applicant. Even after the publication of PD 114/2010, the quality of the first interview in the Evros area remained inadequate. The vast majority of asylum claims are examined according to the accelerated procedure. The decisions are then made by the Police Directorate of Orestiada. Almost every request for international protection has been dismissed in the first instance by a decision drafted in stereotypical terms (only one subsidiary status was granted to a detainee in the Evros region between December 2010 and October 2011). The decisions contain stereotypes like in the following example: Until the publication of PD 114/2010, asylum-seekers did not have access to an effective remedy against negative decisions in the first instance (see MSS v. Belgium and Greece). The rejected asylum seekers in detention faced the threat of expulsion without having access to prescribed legal remedies against the negative decision, which was considered to be ineffective (annulment application before the Council of State in Athens). After the publication of PD 14/2011 the detainees gained the right to appeal before an Appeals Committee, but access to the legal remedy was not guaranteed for the following reasons: a) The asylum decision is only in Greek language and the detainees were not properly informed about their deadline for the appeal. b) The detainees cannot write the appeal by themselves in Greek. They need the support of a lawyer. c) There is a lack of a legal aid scheme. According to PD 114/2010, asylum seekers whose asylum application was rejected before December, 2010, had the opportunity to appeal before the Appeals Committee within a deadline of three months (until February, 2011). The police officers never informed the rejected asylum seekers that they had to lodge this kind of appeal within the deadline. On the contrary, the detainees were kept in detention facing deportation, despite the expulsion being suspended during the period of those three months. 9. Asylum and the asylum procedure in detention 9.4. Withdrawal from the asylum procedure During the mission we became aware of cases of withdrawal of asylum applications under ambiguous conditions. It seems that in some cases the police »persuaded« asylum seekers to withdraw their asylum claim. The deplorable detention conditions affected the detainees deeply. R.T., detainee in the border guard station of Tychero, had applied for asylum and, pending his asylum claim, he was readmitted to Turkey. After interventions he was returned to Greece. He stayed again in degrading detention conditions in Tychero. In detention he was informed that his son, who had been living in Iraq, had passed away. He understood that the police told him that the only way to be released soon and travel back to Iraq in order to attend the funeral was to sign some papers, whose content he did not understand. He unwittingly withdrew from his asylum claim and faced the risk of being deported back to Iran. F.H. was arrested on December 16, 2011. On December 20, 2010 he had applied for asylum after the intervention of a lawyer. On December 24, 2011, after lodging an asylum application, the police ordered his deportation and detention. On January 8, 2011 it seemed that F.H. had resigned from the asylum application, though he was unaware of it. With the intervention of a lawyer he repeated / re-submitted his request for asylum. S.G., an Iranian national and unaccompanied minor who reached adulthood in detention, was detained in the border guard station of Tychero. He claimed asylum with the support of a GCR-lawyer. The doctor examined him and diagnosed a psychological disorder on July 5, 2011. The police seem to have misled him by telling him that he had to resign from his asylum application in order to be released. On July7, 2011 his detention was lifted on the basis of the medical problems. He was ordered to leave the country within in 30 days as there was a pending deportation order against him. He was arrested once more and again faced the threat of expulsion to Iran. T.D. from Iraq was detained in the border guard station of Tychero. A deportation decision was issued against him on March 4, 2011. He had applied for asylum with the support of a private lawyer. On July 5, 2011 the doctor diagnosed him as suffering from allergic asthma; said that he had suffered two (asthma) attacks in February, 2011 and June 24, 2011, that he should be receiving medical treatment, and that the detention conditions were exacerbating his medical condition. The police seem to have misled him by

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