"I don’t understand why they hit me"

The two main respondents of this testimony are Afghani men aged between 19 and 30. They report hiding inside a small boat that was on top of a truck in the afternoon of the 4th of November, 2020. at Port Patras. They were lying down completely, when two police officers patrolling the port by car spotted them. At the same time, another officer on a motorbike, described as “big” also approached them. 

The three police officers made their way to the top of the small boat where the respondents were hiding. Suddenly, one of the officers energetically jumped with the intention to step on the face of one of the respondents. “Out of reflex I moved my head towards the side, otherwise he would have fully stepped on my face”. Instead, the officer stepped on the victim’s cheek with one foot and on his shoulder with the other foot. 

After the first aggression, the respondent who had been stepped on managed to start running in order to exit the port, while the other one did not manage to do so successfully due to the situation. Since he was finding difficulty in escaping, he was chased and hit in the back with a baton by the officers. “I have fear. We all have fear. When we see police in the Port, we never go inside. When they leave, we go inside”.  “Why did he hit me? Every time they ask me to go, I say ‘okay, I go’ and I go. It’s not a problem. I don’t understand why they hit me, they don’t have to hit me” claims the victim who was jumped on.