"Everyone there was sleeping on the floor"

The respondent is a  man from Morocco aged 26-30 who was apprehended with his friend aged 18-25 in the early morning of a day in July-December 2022. The respondent was  subsequently detained for 25 days at Fylakio Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) before being transferred to Paranesti (Drama) Pre-Removal Detention Centre (PRDC) for approximately one month. At the time of the interview the respondent’s friend was still detained in Paranesti PRDC. 

The respondent was not able to confirm the exact location of his apprehension but stated that he entered Greece from Ipsala in Turkey and walked for approximately 10km from the River Evros border before being apprehended. Approximately eight officers reportedly approached the two men from behind and told them to stop walking, look at the ground and get on their knees. The respondent could not confirm the exact number, because the officers reportedly told him to look at the floor, so he was not able to count them properly. The respondent reported that some of the officers were wearing green camouflage uniforms and some were wearing blue uniforms; he believed the former to be army officers and the latter police. The respondent reported that these officers then confiscated everything from the two men, including their money, phones and clothes. 

The two men were then reportedly transported in a completely white van to Fylakio Reception and Identification Centre (RIC), a detention site which has been mentioned in previous testimonies collected by BVMN partners. The respondent assumed that the driver of the white van was a police officer because of their uniform, but did not specify which details about the uniform led him to believe this. There was another person sitting next to the driver but the respondent was not able to see them very well. 

The respondent stated that 30-40 minutes passed between the apprehension and their arrival at Fylakio RIC. The RIC was reportedly very dirty, there were no beds and “everyone there was sleeping on the floor”. The respondent stated there was a prison-like complex next to the RIC, likely to be the Fylakio Pre-Removal Detention Centre (PRDC) adjacently located, where he believed the conditions were far worse than at the RIC, as he had heard stories from other people detained there. 

“everyone there was sleeping on the floor”

While the respondent was held at Fylakio RIC he was reportedly asked by what he described as “UN officials” if he wanted to apply for asylum. The respondent subsequently initiated an asylum application at Fylakio RIC. After 25 days, and before receiving a response to his asylum application, he was transferred to Paranesti PRDC and detained there for approximately one month. The respondent was transferred to a Pre-Removal Detention Centre even though he had not yet received a response to his asylum application. He was not given a reason for his transfer.

The respondent reported that no one explained to him where he was being transported to when he was transferred to Paranesti PRDC. He was reportedly told to get ready and collect his stuff “to go somewhere”, without any further details about where he was being transferred to or the reasons for this. The respondent was reportedly transferred in a group of more than 30 people from Afghanistan in a blue bus with what he described as “small cells” inside. 

When they arrived at Paranesti PRDC, this group was reportedly body searched and had all their belongings searched. The officers searching the group reportedly broke the cameras of their phones and took time to return the broken phones to members of the group. The respondent reported that members of the group were then given very thin mattresses. 

The respondent was reportedly placed in a large container room which had bunk beds in it. The room had 11 other people in it whom the respondent described as being North Africans who spoke the same language as the respondent. The respondent believed that some other rooms were extremely overcrowded with up to 18 people in them. The group in the respondent’s room decided to clean the room themselves. The respondent reported that there are sometimes people who clean these rooms, but they do not come at the weekend. “The cleaners come every day but they do not clean everything – just the floor quickly and then they go.” 

The respondent stated that a man in a truck came to sell things everyday at the PRDC but it was very expensive to buy products from him.

The respondent stated that nobody explained to him why he was being detained at Paranesti PRDC, both before and after his transportation to the PRDC. The respondent explained that he was not informed of anything, even in a language which he did not understand. 

The respondent was asked to sign a paper written in Greek which reportedly stated that he was to be detained at the PRDC for 50 days. The respondent explained that detainees at Paranesti PRDC are asked to sign one of these papers when they arrive and are then given a new one to sign after 50 days have passed. No translation assistance was offered to help the respondent understand the paper written in Greek. He stated that “you have to sign it, even if you don’t understand.” The respondent reported that there were no lawyers at the PRDC and he did not see any NGO or UN staff there. “Nobody comes to Drama [Paranesti PRDC] to check on people. You see only police officers.” 

The respondent reported that most of the officers at the PRDC wore a brown uniform and the higher-ranking officers had a blue uniform with stars on it. The respondent did not notice any other types of officers at the PRDC. The respondent reported that the police at the PRDC refused to give medical assistance to detainees who asked for it. He also reported that the food detainees were given was of poor quality. In the morning officers would reportedly make noise coming in and out of the cells, which disturbed people who were sleeping in the cells. “There was no respect for detainees.” 

The respondent stated that many people in the PRDC were taken to a separate room where they were reportedly locked up and beaten by officers using batons. The respondent explained that this happened to detainees who the officers at the PRDC wanted to “punish”, for example if they had attempted to climb the fence surrounding the PRDC because they needed to receive medical treatment and were being denied this inside the Centre. In these cases, the police reportedly caught the detainees and brought them to the secluded room and beat them there. The respondent also reported that some detainees who repeatedly asked how long they will be detained for were taken to this room and beaten up. The respondent stated that he had seen physical signs that people had been beaten up. The respondent stated that he couldn’t confirm exactly how long each person was beaten for, as this happened in private spaces. “The police cannot beat up detainees in front of everybody. They take you out and they carry on.”

The respondent reported that several people attempted to hang themselves in the cell after undergoing this treatment. “People do not know why they have been put inside this cell and hurt themselves using knives. Even when they do this, nobody takes them to hospital.” The police reportedly refused to give medical attention to these people even after they had injured themselves. 

The respondent reported that there was supposedly a psychologist at the PRDC but that no appointments were actually made with psychologists, even when detainees explicitly requested to see one. The respondent explained that officers at the PRDC wrote down the name of detainees who requested to see a psychologist, “but if you return when a different police officer is on shift, they write your name down again.” This led the respondent to believe that detainees were being tricked into thinking that they could see a psychologist when there was in fact no intention of letting them see one. “There is no actual waiting list, they just write your name down and that’s it.” 

While the respondent was detained at Paranesti PRDC, his asylum application was rejected and he was subsequently released. He was reportedly given a paper which stated that he had to leave Greece within one week or submit an appeal against the rejection of his asylum application. The respondent stated that he did not want to lodge an appeal and just wanted to leave Greece. He was also concerned that if he had appealed while at Paranesti PRDC, his detention period may have been extended. The respondent stated that nobody explained to him why he was detained at Paranesti PRDC and for that amount of time. 

“They do not know how long they will stay; some of them have been in the PRDC for 8-9 months and they do not know what is going to happen. They are in a very bad mental state. There is no entertainment inside the PRDC so it is very boring.”

The respondent ended the interview by stating that his Moroccan and Algerian friends were still detained at Paranesti PRDC.