Antitorture Committee Details Abuse of Migrants in Greece

16/10/2014

Damning accounts of the treatment of migrants in Greece are published almost on a monthly basis. Whether it’s on “abusive” police searches, the illegal practice of pushing migrants back cross the border to Turkey, or the bad conditions and violence many migrants experience during detention.

But Thursday’s report by the Council of Europe’s antitorture committee throws the situation of irregular migrants in Greece into sharp relief. The Council is an intergovernmental institution that counts Greece among its members. And the committee’s 10-person delegation — along with five translators — spent less than two weeks in the country in the spring of 2013, visiting 24 police and border-guard stations, nine detention facilities and seven prisons. That schedule, which also included meetings with Greek officials, hardly leaves time for an in-depth investigation.

Yet, the report details what it calls “totally unacceptable” conditions in detention facilities and “coherent and consistent allegations of physical ill-treatment” by police officers.

In one instance, the delegation found two women in the basement of a police station, one of whom had been held in the tiny, 5-square-meter cells for four months:

At times, six women were crammed into each of these cells. One cell was dark (i.e. had no access to artificial lighting or natural light) and the other cell was poorly lit. The women never left the cells except to go the toilet or to wash (i.e. twice a day); in addition, they were not provided with any hygiene products. Moreover, the cells were damp, had mould on the walls and were in a filthy state; and apparently it was not unusual to see cockroaches and rats.

In other sections of the report, the committee describes migrants being kicked, slapped, punched or hit with batons, metal pipes or phone directories. Here is just one of many reports:

A detained person alleged that, on 12 April 2013, three officers from the Security Police Department at Aghios Panteleimonas had, after stripping him naked, subjected him to slaps, punches and kicks, and delivered several blows with a belt and an iron bar to his chest and head. When met by the delegation, he displayed a swelling on his head and complained about pain in his ribs, where he had apparently been hit with the iron bar. He also had visible bruising on his arms and legs, and a lesion on the inside of his lower lip. Further, both wrists displayed reddish marks from where he had been handcuffed.

The report is especially critical of the treatment of children and teenagers caught travelling on their own, formally known as unaccompanied minors:

One 16-year-old had been held in this cell for more than three weeks, prior to which he had spent 10 months in Komotini pre-departure centre. The conditions in the police station are totally unsuitable for holding unaccompanied minors; further, the rules applied to them were the same as those applied to criminal suspects.

It’s not the first time, the committee has called out Greece on its treatment of irregular migrants. In 2011, after its previous visit, it took the unusual step of issuing a formal “public statement” on its findings, rather than just publishing its report. Hence, much of  the committee’s criticism targets the lack of improvement since then:

Regrettably, despite overwhelming indications to the contrary, the Greek authorities have, to date, consistently refused to consider that ill-treatment is a serious problem in Greece and have not taken the required action.

Part of the reason why the report was published more than a year after the committee’s visit to Greece, is that authorities there had six months to respond to its findings. The result is a detailed, 63-page document, in which the government and various agencies detail their follow-up. They promise to investigate allegations of mistreatment, remind officers of appropriate conduct and the upgrading of certain facilities.

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