24 »We were shouting for days that we are not Iranians!« N.M., from Afghanistan ■ »We left Turkey in a group of 50 persons. We split on the border, so some of us were arrested and transferred to Fylakio prison while the police brought the rest of us to Tychero. We had our relatives waiting for us in Athens. The first day in prison the police brought us into an empty cell. There were two Greek police officers from Tychero prison and 20 of us. One of the officers was asking us questions in English. He did not ask everybody, just four persons. Only one of us was speaking a little bit of English, so he had to translate. The police officer asked us where we came from. We said from Afghanistan. He said: ‘I believe you. But did you never go to Iran?’ We thought we have to say the truth and we would be treated with respect, so we told him that we had passed through Iran on our way to Greece, but we just stayed for a few weeks. Then he asked: ›From which city in Afghanistan are you?‹ One boy said Kabul. Then the officer showed him a map of Afghanistan. It was in black and white. The cities were marked by points and numbers but without names. He said: ›Show me where Kabul is!‹ The boy showed the correct point. Then the police officer asked another one of us. He showed them a paper with pictures of national flags: ›Which one is your flag?‹ This time the answer was wrong. The boy he asked has grown up in Afghanistan. He is Afghan, but he never went to school and he was afraid and stressed. The officer looked at the boy who was from the ethnic group of the Hazara. He wrote on the paper ›Iran‹. Then the officer looked at another boys face. ›You are from Iran, I see that!‹ He wrote again ›Iran‹. One of us was a minor. When he told the police that his age was 17, they told him not to say that, because he would stay in prison longer. This boy had arrived together with his two cousins who are adults. He was afraid and decided to listen to the police. He was registered as 18 years old. The questioning was over. Some of us were registered as Iranians, others as Afghans. We insisted that we are all from Afghanistan, but it didn’t help. Every day we requested to talk to the police director, but we were never allowed. After a few days, eight of us were released, some of them were registered as Afghans and others as Iranians. 12 of us stayed. We were protesting every, but they would not listen to us. We were shouting for days that we are not Iranians. 5. Registration and screening: A wheel of misfortune Then we decided to go on hunger strike. We were just requesting to talk to the head of the prison. There were four officers. They took us out of the cell to the corridor. They said they would call him now. They lied. I think they were afraid of us, because they were less. Suddenly they returned. Now there were 10 of them. ‘Why are you still standing in the corridor,’ one of them shouted at us. Suddenly, they started beating our legs, arms and hands, pushing us back into the cell. All of lost hope. Our bodies were in pain for several days. We called our relatives in Athens and asked them to bring copies of our Afghan documents to the detention centre to proof our real nationality. A friend of us brought the documents and gave them to the police. Nothing happened. The police said they could not understand what the documents in our language (Farsi) were saying and that they could be easily have been faked. Among the remaining 12 of us there was also an old woman. She had diabetes. Another one of us was depending on psycho-pharmacy. Both had carried their medicine with them to Greece, but it was finished during the one month in prison. We were shouting to the guards for a doctor. He never came. More than twice these two of us had to be transferred to hospital due to breakdowns – especially, my friend who had to take calmatives. They were taken out of their cell lying on the cold floor in the corridor for more than half an hour until the police picked them up. After the second transfer, the police said it was enough. They never brought them to hospital again. Instead an officer told him: ›If you get sick here in Greece, then why don’t you go back!‹ N.M. was arrested on October 21, 2010 and his deportation order issued on October 26, 2010. He was registered as Iranian citizen although he told the authorities that he was Afghan. The wrong registration exposed him to the danger of readmission to Turkey. A German Parliamentarian, member of the Green Party and head of the Commission for Human Rights and Humanitarian Help of the Bundestag, Tom Königs, (during his visit in Tychero, November 17, 2010)68 and our lawyers requested a second screening (November 19, 2010) for his nationality to be corrected and attached copies of his Afghan identity card. The authorities informed the mission lawyers that a second screening took place and that his nationality was changed to Afghan. He was released on December 3rd with a new deportation order on which his nationality was stated as: »Iranian or Afghan«.