The asylum office at Petrou Ralli where more than 90 percent of first-instance interviews are conducted has 20 full-time interpreters, five of whom are Arabic speakers. On the day of the Human Rights Watch visit there were few if any Arabic speakers among the crowd of about 75 people waiting for their interviews to begin. The overwhelming majority appeared to be from Bangladesh or other south Asian countries. Human Rights Watch asked a Bangladeshi interpreter how many Bangladeshi interpreters there were. “I am the only one,” he said.275 The problems with interpreters are not limited to the asylum interviews per se. A 36year-old Iraqi man from Basra was arrested while walking on the street shortly after his first interview with Human Rights Watch, spent seven days in the Petrou Ralli jail, and then consented to a second Human Rights Watch interview two hours after his release from Petrou Ralli. He was taken from Petrou Ralli to appear in court. Because of language problems, he was not clear where the court was or the charges against him. He spoke about the hearing: I went to court, but I didn’t understand anything because there was no interpreter. The judge asked me one question. The whole thing only lasted three minutes. He asked me a question in Greek. A guard who speaks some Arabic told me that he sentenced me to three months, but I was released after seven days.276 Appeals of Negative Decisions Like first-instance decisions, appeals are characterized by cursory consideration of claims and procedural superficiality; in 2007 Greece granted asylum to 138 cases on appeal, two percent of the total.277 A six-person Appeals Committee, chaired by the legal counsellor of the Secretariat General for Public Order, meets twice a week and considers 75 cases per session. The Appeals Committee historically has not rendered decisions itself, but rather has made recommendations to the Secretariat General for Public Order. The new refugee law, retroactive to December 1, 2007, now authorizes the Appeals Committee to make decisions itself, but the majority of the Appeals Committee remains 275 Human Rights Watch interview with interpreter, Petrou Ralli asylum office, June 4, 2008. Although he was the only Bangladeshi, he said that some of the other interpreters could also speak Bangla. 276 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-9), Athens, June 1, 2008. 277 UNHCR, “Position on the Return of Asylum-seekers to Greece,” p. 4. 101 Human Rights Watch November 2008