Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area Panteleimonas police station. The Afghan men stated they knew nothing of the man in the photograph, whereupon the policemen reportedly began to beat them. The police returned to the guesthouse that afternoon and evening, and again after midnight on 14 December and in the afternoon on 15 December. On the day of their last visit, the policemen put the Afghans into one room and allegedly began to punch, kick, and hit them with their truncheons. One policeman allegedly took out his revolver and threatened one of the victims with execution. Following this, the police took two of the men away to the local police station separately and illtreated them there. One of them reported that the police officers at the station beat him with a piece of rubber on the soles of the feet, threw cold water on him, spat in his mouth and twisted his genitals. The other was a minor, whom the police spotted outside the building at 2pm that day and, pointing a revolver at him, dragged him along the ground and took him to the Agios Panteleimonas police station. The 17-year-old said that they transferred him to the basement and held him there for an hour; that four policemen asked him about the person they were looking for and allegedly beat him severely, threatened him with a gun, undressed him and took photographs with a mobile telephone. During this time they were all laughing and ridiculing him with insults. He said that one of the police officers was giving the orders and the other three were carrying them out. Representatives from Amnesty International and other NGOs, during their visit to the guesthouse in the afternoon of 15 December, saw injuries that the Afghan men say were inflicted by the police. A doctor from the Medical Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture examined the Afghan men and considered that the injuries were a result of serious beating with both sharp and blunt instruments. Photographs of the beaten men were released in the press. 36 many having preliminary documents, while others, having come from Mytilini after three months’ detention, had not yet been allowed to submit their asylum claims. In addition some had been returned from other European countries in accordance with the Dublin II Regulation and did not have any legal documentation while others had their applications denied. In addition to this illtreatment, the police also took documentation from three of the Afghan men and failed to return their papers to them. Because of this, and because of the absence of papers for people in the last two categories, many of the victims were in effect “persons without papers” and thus in an extremely vulnerable position. Although they complained to lawyers and activists of ill-treatment by the police officers during these incidents, they refused to file formal complaints or provide evidence of the abuse they had suffered for fear of retribution. At the time, all the Afghan men in question were in the process of seeking asylum in Greece. Very few of them had their “red card”, Amnesty International 5 October 2005 AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005