"Them calling me terrorist: that is not okay. I had to leave Afghanistan because of the Taliban"

The two respondents of this testimony are two men from Afghanistan aged between 18 and 30 years old. They describe hiding under a truck inside the New Port of Patras in the afternoon (around 5pm) on November 15th. Two men described as “port security guards” –who were, however, not wearing any uniforms– approached the vehicle and ordered the young men to come out.   The two respondents obeyed, but decided to run and flee the site as soon as they were out of their hiding spot. The two security guards chased them and reached them: they pulled them by their clothes and pushed them to the ground. Stepping on top of them, they handcuffed both of them together with only one pair of handcuffs, while insulting and shouting at them. The 18 year-old respondent was hit on his upper body by one of them during the incident. Still on the pavement of the port, the two respondents were ordered to sit on the floor and their documents and cell phones were confiscated.

“He called me daesh, he called me terrorist. Every time he called me taliban, I said I am not a taliban, I come from Afghanistan”.

After 5 to 10 minutes, the respondents were picked up in a car and taken to the port security headquarters. In there came what one of the respondents called “the big boss”.  The respondents were sat down and one of their hands handcuffed to the chair in what is described to be a small room in a place with several rooms. “He told us: ‘why did you run? why did you not obey us?’”. Then, they were both slapped in their faces. The 24 year-old was slapped once, whereas the 18 year-old was slapped 8 to 9 times. It was the same officer who slapped both of them. “While he was speaking with me, he was slapping my friend. When he was speaking with my friend, he was slapping me”, claims one of the respondents.

The 18 year-old shared that one of the guards left and re-entered the room holding a hammer in his hand. “He entered with the hammer and screaming with an angry face like a dog ‘why were you running? If we tell you to stop, you stop, why were you running?’”.

After the aggression, the two men were sitting in that room, still handcuffed on one hand, for 2 to 3 hours. Eventually, a new officer came into the room, released them from the chairs and gave them their belongings back, after which they were threatened if they were to be seen in Patras again. “We are not afraid of being hit and being slapped by the security. It is okay that they slapped me. But them calling me taliban, calling me daesh, calling me terrorist: that is not okay. I had to leave Afghanistan because of the taliban. I come here to work and build a good life here, to send money to my mother and father, and they call me terrorists. It’s not good. If there was peace in my country none of us would be here, we would all go back to Afghanistan. Many of us have degrees, I have two bachelors. In Afghanistan I had a car, a house, my family, my friends. Now my family is in Afghanistan and I am here, suffering all this tension to make a better life for my family and me.”  

All in all, three officers were involved in the incident and four, counting the one who came to release them, were involved in the whole testimony.