“They drove us to a place that is like hell, in the name of Menidi ”
| Between March 2023 and July 2023 | Amygdaleza PRDC, Paranesti PRDC | Anonymous | 45.7908691, 15.9976521 | Detention and Reception Reports | Greece | Amygdaleza PRDC, Paranesti PRDC | Pre-Removal Detention Centre (PRDC) | no | yes | no | no | no | no | Iranian Kurdistan | Beating (with Batons/Hands/Other), Threats, Tear Gas, Death of other Detainee | Physical Violence, Lack of Information on Rights, Lack of Access to Medical Care, Poor Quality/Quantity of Food and/or Water, Poor Hygiene Conditions, Lack of Translation of Documents, Lack of Translation, Lack of Free Legal Information, Confiscation of devices, Property Damage, Lack of Adequate Means of Rest, Fingerprints Taken, Photograph taken | 61 to 180 days |
The respondent was a Kurdish man from Iran (age group 31-45). He stated that he was arrested in Athens 2 days after he entered the country. At the time of his arrest, he was accompanied by an Afghan young man. The respondent described how they had been unsuccessfully looking for a humanitarian organisation to claim asylum through when they were approached by 5 police officers, 2 in grey uniforms without symbols or writing on them, and 3 plainclothes officers. He stated that the police let the young man go but arrested him after he told them he did not have any documents. They only spoke to him in Greek, a language which he did not understand.
The respondent explained that the police officers put him in a green Peugeot van with 7 other men: 3 Pakistanis, 2 Egyptians, 1 Afghan and 1 Albanian. They were driven for half an hour to a police station.
At the police station, he stated that they were fingerprinted, had their photos taken and were asked for information about their nationality, parents’ names and other personal information, without any explanation as to why. The respondent said that he asked the police for asylum but the police “ignored me, they didn’t even listen. They behaved very rude and disrespectful. In a dangerous way.” He stated that a police officer in a green uniform hit him in the face. The police officers forced him to sign a paper written in Greek, which he didn’t understand and said they would put him in jail.
The respondent said that, after 2-3 hours at the police station, a minimal amount of time compared to what he knew others had been there for, he was put in a van, along with the others he had arrived with. “They drove us to a place that is like hell, in the name of Menidi”. It was a 40 minute drive away from the police station. He said that he spent 15 days in Menidi (Amygdaleza Pre-removal Detention Centre). He explained there were about 1000 people there, “including drug smugglers and drug addicts”.
The respondent stated that in Menidi (Amygdaleza Pre-removal detention centre), he was asked to sign a paper, written in Greek, a language which he did not understand and which was not explained to him. He said, “ they told me .. if you’re not going to sign the paper, we’re just going to sign it for you. And if we sign it for you, you’re going to spend a long time in jail.” He said that he signed the paper. He stated that he was aware that this was happening to other people, that the police were signing documents for them, without their consent.
The respondent described his accommodation as an isobox divided into 2 rooms with 6 men in each room. He said it was very dirty, that nowhere was clean and he was given a “very very dirty mattress [...] and almost all of us got some skin virus, we all got some sickness or illness from there.” There was poor hygiene and no cleaning supplies available.
The respondent detailed significant impacts because of lack of access to medical care and medicine. He stated, “I got tortured in Iran, and because of that, I had to use some medicine”. He stated that he asked repeatedly to see a doctor and for medication but all he received was an aggressive response and no medical care . “The whole time, they did not give us any medical support.” He also spoke about another person who had become disabled and unable to walk because they were not given the medical care they needed.
The respondent then recounted the death of an Indian man in Menidi (Amygdaleza Pre-removal detention centre) who “died because of lack of medicine, lack of healthcare.” He said that the man died from an unknown medical problem and had needed to urgent medical care, which he did not receive. Before the man died, “everyone was fighting for him, asking the police to get him to a hospital, to get him a doctor, but the police never even gave an answer, never cared about it. They didn’t do anything until the person died. ” Then, after he died in his room, “all the people took his dead body and they put it in the centre of the area. And then they started protesting and the police realised that someone had died.” The respondent stated that there was a furious aggressive response towards the detainees from a woman dressed in black, whom the respondent believed to be the detention centre manager.
The respondent described the protest that followed and the police response. He stated that everyone “got mad and started destroying the place.” He stated that riot police arrived within a short time wearing facemasks and carrying sticks. The respondent did not witness any violence but said he heard that there had been some physical fighting. The detainees were forced to remain in their rooms. The riot police used tear gas which he said made it difficult to sleep because it permeated the camp and their isobox.
Within a day or so of these incidents, the respondent said that he and 200 other detainees were transferred to pre-removal detention centres in Corithos, Paranesti and to Xanthi. He stated that he believed these transfers of people chosen at random because he and others he knew who had not participated in the protest were transferred to other centres. He was taken to Paranesti Pre-Removal Detention Centre, also known as Drama, as part of a group of 30 people. He stated that they were woken up at 5am and told to gather their belongings. Then they were put into a bus with cages for 3-4 people. “we could just sit there on the floor, not on chairs. We couldn’t be able to even to stretch our legs.” He stated that the journey took from approximately 7am until 5pm. He said that the bus only stopped briefly once for them to get out and go to the toilet, only after the detainees protested that they needed a stop. The place they stopped at was in a “really dirty place, like a jail.”
At the time of this interview, the respondent had been in Paranesti Pre-Removal Detention Centre for about 45 days. When he arrived at the facility, he told the staff that he had been tortured in Iran and asked how long he would stay. He did not received an answer.
He stated that in Paranesti there were “some good things ” like air-conditioning in the rooms, a cleaner coming to clean every 2 days and that “the police behaviour was a little better”. But he said that “the food is disgusting, not cooked well, small portions, very hard to eat and others, they are not eating at all and they are starving.” He said that their mobile phones were taken away for 8 days and the cameras removed but the police did not ask for their PIN numbers to examine the phones.
He said he asked again if he could claim asylum. After several days, he was given a document in Greek, which he didn’t understand but he signed it.
The respondent also shared a copy of this document with us, along with some photos and videos he had taken in Amygdaleza Pre-removal detention centre.