“They hit you in your face, in your head, your back, it’s up to them.”

The respondent is a 30-45 years-old man from Morocco. Between January and June 2020, he was in Kamara, central Thessaloniki, chatting with a group of friends, who were all Greek citizens. He had been in Greece for a long time, so he spoke Greek and had local friends. 6 Greek policemen in plain clothes arrived in grey personal cars with no police signs on them. They approached the group, introduced themselves as the police, and asked the respondent to show them his documents. He showed them his valid registration card (“Ausweis”). They asked him to come with them to a police station in order to check his documents. He was told he would be released shortly, so he followed them to the car. He was taken to a police station in Kalamaria, a town about 7 kilometers south of Thessaloniki. 

At the Kalamaria police station, our interviewee’s documents were checked and he was body-searched. Then, the policemen brought some documents for him to sign. The documents were written in Greek and there was no interpreter present. The interviewee can only speak Greek, but not read or write it, so he did not know what he was signing. He was convinced by the policemen that these are release papers and a part of a regular procedure, so he signed them. After that, his fingerprints and face photographs were taken. He was not given any food or water, and did not have access to toilets.

Around 3-4 am in the night, he was taken from his cell by 2 policemen in plain clothes and brought to the Police Headquarters (“Megalo”) in Thessaloniki by car. The journey lasted about an hour. In “Megalo”, there were 20 other people on the move, Algerians and Moroccans, who had also been taken from the street like him. There were 3 minors among them and the others were in their mid-20s. All of them had legal documents to stay in Greece, which were confiscated by the police. The interviewee was detained there for 5 days. All 20 people were together in one cell. The conditions were quite bad, he told us, and the police were often violent against the people. "There were good and bad cops", he told us. "Some of the migrants were upset and demanded an explanation of why they were kept there. They were shouting, so the “good” policeman called the “violent ones,” who beat them".

After 5 days, the police came in the morning, took all 20 people from the cell, and handcuffed them. People were asking where they were being taken, but they did not receive a clear answer. They put the people in a large police bus and took off. The bus stopped on the way and more people were brought in - "Arabs", Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Afghanis - until the bus was full, carrying around 60 people. Then they were taken to the Drama Paranesti Pre-Removal Detention Centre. Their documents issued by the Greek state were never returned to them, and the cameras on everyone’s mobile phones were broken in order to prevent documentation. The respondent was detained at the Drama detention center for 3 months, but he has been in touch with some of his friends, who were still kept there at the time of our interview, nearly 6 months later. 

Drama detention center is a notoriously violent place, and this testimony supports its reputation. The newcomers were put in cells in groups of 10-15 persons. The detainees were always hungry, as they were being given very little food and the food was bad, unhealthy, and made them feel bad. “They were only feeding us enough to survive,” our interlocutor said.

Moreover, the detainees were not given any clothes, and were constantly subjected to insults and physical violence. When a person asked questions such as why he was kept there, complained, or asked for basic necessities such as underwear, often an argument broke out. In these cases, the policemen called the officers covered with balaclavas, who beat everyone from that cell. The beatings were brutal. The respondent was beaten many times in all kinds of ways - punched, hit with batons, kicked, stamped, etc. Some people’s heads and cheeks were injured in the beatings, but the police did not care, the respondent told us. “They hit you in your face, in your head, your back, it’s up to them.” The respondent’s back was injured and at the time of our interview, months later, he still had swelling on his upper arm from a beating in Drama. The injury occured when he was being beaten and an officer attempted to hit his head with a baton, but he protected himself with his arms, possibly saving his life. In addition to physical violence and deprivation from basic necessities, the detainees were also constantly subjected to insults. They were called words that our translator was unable to state out.