There was one girl who had been poisoned, and we had to go back to our
traditional medicine, because there was no doctor. We mixed water and
salt in order to induce vomiting. 97
A 22-year-old Iranian detainee we spoke with in Feres told us that he was fearful that the
police would beat him up because he decided to talk with us. He also said that one night
he had a fight with another detainee, and was therefore “punished” by the police with
beatings. At the time, he said, the police decided to take out all the men in the detention
facility, and beat them all.98 A Greek police officer confirmed this in an informal
conversation with Human Rights Watch. He said that the detainees fight every night and
that the police enter and beat them all together. 99
Spiridon Daskaris, the commander of the Feres detention center, spoke openly about the
difficult conditions, but explained that as Greece was hit hard by the financial crisis, they
simply did not have the ability to provide better standards:
We owe money to laundry and food providers. The detainees don’t have
soap now, because the supermarket that has provided this is fed up. We
asked again and again. Some people buy from their own money. When we
get help it is usually not from our state but from others.100
Soufli
Soufli is a municipality in the Evros region very close to the Evros River. In our visit to the
Soufli police station, we once again found an extremely overcrowded, filthy and poorly lit
facility, in which men and women were not separated. One of the Greek policemen there
mentioned to the Human Rights Watch interpreter that two days previously a woman was
raped in a cell by another detainee.101 Human Rights Watch inquired if Frontex knew about
the allegation. We received the following answer:
Frontex had got the information from the field about a case of alleged rape
around 5/6 November 2010; Frontex immediately approached the Hellenic
Police and asked them for internal investigation which was agreed. Frontex
97
Human Rights Watch Interview I-37, Athens, February 13, 2011.
Conversation with Human Rights Watch Interpreter G-2, Feres, November 29, 2010.
99 Informal conversation with police officer at Feres.
98
100 Human Rights Watch Interview with Spiridon Daskaris, Feres, November 29, 2010.For general corroboration of our
findings on Feres, see HRC report, pg. 42; FRA report, pg. 25.
101 Informal conversation with police officer, Soufli, November 29, 2010.
35
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2011
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