"Everyone knows that this is not a safe island."

The respondent is a Syrian man who arrived in Samos in late 2022 and was taken to the CCAC. He lived in the CCAC until he left Samos in May 2023. He reported that he arrived in Samos on a boat with 14 other people, of which seven were from Syria and seven from Palestine. Reportedly, the boat was initially stopped by what he describes as “the Turkish coast guard, but they were let go because it was during the night”. They then arrived in Samos and were met by the police, identified by the uniforms they were wearing, and also by MSF. The respondent reports that the police accused one person that was on the boat of being a smuggler and kept this person isolated and detained in the CCAC for seven days, accusing him of “talking with the smuggler, asking “we are in the middle of sea. Where we going””. After this time, the respondent reports that he saw this person being taken to the police station in handcuffs.

The respondent reports that “the police could catch you and send you back to Turkey”. He recalls being aware of the police taking a person from every boat to accuse them, by saying “you are the smuggler, you are helping to bring people, you are the driver, it is illegal to drive the boat”, which according to him is done to scare more asylum seekers and decrease the numbers of people who come to Samos. 

The respondent recalls that the safety in the CCAC fluctuates, depending on the situation. He shares that "if you have a problem, you are not safe", “everyone knows that this is not a safe island”. He reports that sometimes the police arrest people in the city and take them to the police station. The respondent also explained that, there, they would often not have access to an interpreter and their phone would be taken from them so they would not be able to call a lawyer. 

The respondent reports that twice he was ordered by the police to follow them and help them interpret, once at the police station and once during an official court hearing. He reports this happens because the police do not have interpreters on Samos, and he was one of the only people speaking Arabic and English. For this reason, he reports that he did not feel safe in the CCAC as “sometimes if police need you, they can take you whatever happens, and that happened to me twice”. 

The respondent explains that he would not mind working as a translator for the police, but after the night that he was taken to the police station he saw something happen to other people and he said that “after what I saw I told them [the police] I’m not coming again, so I did not go, I just go once to court and that was the last”. He reports that he was asked to translate during the interrogation of a man from Palestine who was accused of touching a girl on a bus. Reportedly, one policeman started questioning him and when the Palestinian man said he was not in a bus, but tha he had been to a restaurant and to the house of a Greek woman, the policeman said that it was not true and started beating him. The respondent reports that it was only one policeman beating the Palestinian man, with another policeman that was standing by the door. When the policeman stopped beating him, the Palestinian man had a lot of bruises on his face (but no blood), he was given no medical attention and was kept in the police station. The respondent reports that the Palestinian man was later found innocent. 

The respondent reports that he was taken back to the camp that night. He said that after what he saw he did not want to work as an interpreter for the police, and he said this to the women inside the camp, that they call “mum” or “mama”. The respondent reports that the police asked for his number to ask for his help whenever they needed it but when they called him next, he refused to go and asked the “mum” to speak to the police, to whom she said that she would not send him. He reports that the “mums” spoke to the guards from the camp about it and told him that the guards would not allow the police to take him another time. Reportedly, this is what happened the next time they came to get him. However, the police came to ask for his help again one morning, when the “mum” was not working (as their shifts start at 2pm until 10pm), so he was taken to the courthouse to act as an interpreter again. He reported that he was asked to translate in the case of another person from the CCAC.

The respondent reports that he was told that he would only get paid after he worked with the police for one year. He was not told why he was not getting paid, only that “this is Greece”, but as his asylum application was not yet registered, he would not have been able to work legally and get paid at this stage. Reportedly, there are no other people speaking English inside the camp, except an Egyptian woman, and this will be a problem for people that do not speak English as there is no access to services such as the information point and the psychologist. 

The respondent reported that once he was contacted by an organisation and he met them to answer some questions about the condition of the camp for a Spanish newspaper. Reportedly, after a few days he was taken by the police to a part of the camp and he was asked a lot of questions about how he arrived in Samos, details about the journey and about the person from his boat that was arrested. When he asked why he was being questioned, they told him that this was the procedure, but he reported that it was only him and another person being questioned. Reportedly, this happened during the month of Ramadan, but the fasting hours were not respected.