20 THE DUBLIN II TRAP TRANSFERS OF ASYLUM-SEEKERS TO GREECE Under the asylum system in force until July 2009, Greek law stipulated that decisions on asylum should normally be based on a personal interview with the applicant.67 Article 10 of Presidential Decree 90/2008 stated that the interview was aimed, amongst other things, at confirming what is alleged in the asylum application, including an explanation by the applicant of the reasons for leaving his or her country of origin and for requesting protection. In addition, Article 10(1) provided that asylum-seekers had to be given sufficient time to prepare for the interview. Under PD 81/2009, Article 3 no longer states explicitly that asylum-seekers should be given adequate time to prepare for the interview. Previous and current Greek law are clear on the need to carry out asylum interviews to make an assessment of and take decisions on asylum applications. However, Amnesty International is concerned that, in the vast majority of cases examined during this research, in practice asylum interviews were either not conducted at all or were conducted in a perfunctory manner. Until July 2009, asylum interviews with Dublin II returnees, who had not previously applied for asylum in Greece,68 were conducted at Athens airport, often after a detention period of a few days. Reportedly, they usually consisted only of basic questions about the applicant’s name, date of birth and nationality. Asylum-seekers have told Amnesty International that the police at the airport who interviewed them did not inform them explicitly that they were having an “asylum interview”, or that they were required to provide relevant information and evidence in support of their claim for international protection. Many of the asylum-seekers interviewed by Amnesty International stated that, at the airport, they were asked neither about the reasons for having fled their countries nor about their fears of returning.69 Some of the asylum-seekers interviewed by Amnesty International stated that they were not interviewed at all but were just provided with a pink card. Under the system at the time, receiving a pink card meant that an interview had been conducted, even if it had not. This reported practice could have serious implications for the fair determination of the asylum claims since important information regarding the validity of their claims was not registered and seen by the competent decision-making bodies. O. was returned to Greece from Germany under the Dublin II system in mid-2008. He is a Sudanese national, and had not applied for asylum in Greece before. He claims he is of Darfuri origin and that he had been detained by the secret services of the Sudanese authorities in 1997 and tortured, in an unofficial detention facility. He was subsequently released from detention and left the country. He told Amnesty International that, upon arrival at Athens airport, he was not interviewed for the purpose of asylum determination and was only given a pink card. Signs of torture were subsequently recorded and documented by a medical doctor from the Medical Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Torture, a Greek NGO.70 K. and her brother A., Iranian nationals, were returned to Greece from the UK at the end of 2008. They had not applied for asylum in Greece before. In interviews with Amnesty International, A. alleged that he had been imprisoned in Iran because of his political activities as a local leader of a Kurdish minority group. K. stated that she had been beaten by Iranian police, apparently in connection with the political activities of her brother. She claimed that her knee had been injured as a result of the beatings and that this caused ongoing difficulties for her in walking. Both A. and K. told Amnesty International that, after their return to Greece under the Dublin Regulation, police at the airport did not carry out an asylum interview with them and that they were immediately given a pink card. Amnesty International March 2010 Index: EUR 25/001/2010