accompanying them, the visit was formerly announced.92 When we entered the main cell area where men were detained, the police officers welcomed us and seemed well prepared for the monitoring process. While two NPM members were observing the state of the cells, the third member was standing at the back chatting cheerfully with one of the police officers and agreeing with him that the detainees had gotten themselves into this situation; in other words, accepting the mainstream fallacy that those who ‘choose’ to travel irregularly to another country should be ready to face that country’s law should they get detected. When the police opened the doors to the cells, the men at first seemed disinterested to the inspectors. ‘We are from the Ombudsman’, the NPM said trying to explain in English who they were, as they were handing out leaflets about the Ombudsman and told detainees that they could write to the Ombudsman in their own languages if they had any complaints; however, the leaflets were in English and the detainees did not have paper or pens, nor access to mobile devices or the internet. The men, most of whom spoke only Arabic, anxiously showed them the papers the police had given them in Greek seeking to understand why they were detained. The information about legal help and detainees’ rights in detention was pinned on a board outside the cells. Everything was in Greek too. In broken English the men complained about being locked up all day and having very little time out of their cell. Some of them added they had not seen a doctor for medical issues they had been reporting to the police. The reason for this was that allegedly the police could deny us entry so they had to have our names beforehand to avoid any obstacles to access. 92 139