M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT
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children. I go up to the second level: a Sri Lankan man with an infectious disease is
being held in isolation in a small bungalow. The hangar where the women and
children are held is the only open one. There are beds, but not enough, so there are
mattresses on the bare concrete floor. It is late summer, but everyone complains that
they are cold and there are not enough blankets. The last jail, the one for minors.
There are 125 of them. ...”
In his report dated February 2009, the Council of Europe Commissioner
for Human Rights stated:
“During the meeting with the Commissioner, the authorities in Evros department
informed him that as at 1 December 2008 there were 449 irregular migrants detained
by the police in six different places of detention in that department. The five most
common nationalities were: Iraq (215), Afghanistan (62), Georgia (49), Pakistan (37)
and Palestine (27). On 9 December 2008, date of the Commissioner’s visit, at the two
separate warehouse-type detention rooms of the Feres border guard station, which
dates from 2000, there were 45 young, male, irregular migrants in detention, most of
them Iraqis. ... They were in fact crammed in the rooms, sleeping and stepping upon
mattresses that had been placed on the floor and on a cement platform, one next to the
other. In the bathrooms the conditions were squalid. Some detainees had obvious skin
rashes on their arms and one with bare feet complained that the authorities did not
provide him with shoes and clean clothes. ... On 9 December 2008 the police
authorities informed the Commissioner that at Kyprinos (Fylakio) there were 320
inmates in seven detention rooms, the majority of them being of Iraqi and Afghan
nationalities.”
164. The CPT visited the detention centre next to Athens International
Airport in 2005. It noted:
“The conditions in the separate cell block are of concern to the CPT’s delegation.
Each cell (measuring 9.5 sq. m) had an official capacity of five persons, already too
high. In fact, the registers showed that on many occasions, for example in May and
June 2005, the occupancy rate reached six and even as high as nine persons per cell.
An examination of the cells seemed to indicate that originally they had been designed
for one person as there was only a single plinth in the cells – certainly no more than
three persons, preferably no more than two, should be held overnight in such cells.
The sanitary facilities were outside the cells and the delegation heard many
complaints that the police guards did not respond rapidly to requests to go to the
toilet; further, access to the shower appeared extremely limited, and five persons, in
the same cell, claimed they had not had a shower in seven days – the overbearing hot,
sweaty stench lent much credence to their allegation. The delegation also met a man
who had spent one and a half months in one of the cells with no change of clothes, no
access to fresh air nor any exercise nor any purposeful activity.”
Following its visit to Greece in 2007, the CPT noted that there had been
no improvement as regards the manner in which persons detained were
treated and reported cases of ill-treatment at the hands of the police officers
in the deportation cell at Athens International Airport:
“At Petru Rali Alien detention facility, a Bangladeshi national alleged that he had
been slapped and kicked by the escorting police officers in the deportation cell at
Athens International Airport after he had refused deportation. He further alleged that
they had compressed his throat, pressed their fingers into his eye sockets, twisted his
hands behind his back and kicked him on the back of the legs, the buttocks and in the