32 M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT little or no possibility of taking a walk, no place to relax, insufficient mattresses, dirty mattresses, no free access to toilets, inadequate sanitary facilities, no privacy, limited access to care. Many of the people interviewed also complained of insults, particularly racist insults, proffered by staff and the use of physical violence by guards. 163. For example, following its visit to Greece from 27 August to 9 September 2005 the CPT reported: “The building of the new special holding facilities for foreigners ... represented an opportunity for Greece to adopt an approach more in line with the norms and standards developed within Europe. Regrettably, the authorities have maintained a carceral approach, often in threadbare conditions and with no purposeful activities and minimal health provision, for persons who are neither convicted nor suspected of a criminal offence and who have, as described by many Greek interlocutors, often experienced harrowing journeys to arrive in Greece.” In February 2007 the CPT inspected twenty-four police stations and holding centres for migrants run by the Ministry for Public Order and concluded that “persons deprived of their liberty by law enforcement officials in Greece run a real risk of being ill-treated”. It added: “[Since the CPT’s last visit to Greece, in 2005] there has been no improvement as regards the manner in which persons detained by law enforcement agencies are treated. The CPT’s delegation heard, once again, a considerable number of allegations of ill-treatment of detained persons by law enforcement officials. Most of the allegations consisted of slaps, punches, kicks and blows with batons, inflicted upon arrest or during questioning by police officers. ... In several cases, the delegation’s doctors found that the allegations of ill-treatment by law enforcement officials were consistent with injuries displayed by the detained persons concerned.” In November 2008 Human Rights Watch expressed its concern in the following terms: “Although Greek police authorities did not give Human Rights Watch unimpeded access to assess conditions of detention in the locations we asked to visit, we were able to gather testimonies from detainees that paint an alarming picture of police mistreatment, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions, particularly in places where we were not allowed to visit, such as border police stations, the airport, Venna, and Mitilini. The detention conditions and police abuses described in the three preceding sections of this report certainly constitute inhuman and degrading treatment.” In its December 2008 report Cimade observed: “In 2003 1,000 people arrived in Lesbos; in 2007 they numbered 6,000 and in the first eight months of 2008 there were 10,000 arrivals. ... A group of demonstrators are waiting for us: chanting ‘no border, no nation, no deportation’, about ten of them demanding that the place be closed down. Arms reach out through the fencing, calling for help. Three large caged-in rooms each holding eighty-five men: Afghans, Palestinians, Somalians, locked up all day long in appalling squalor. It is chilly in the late Greek summer and people are sleeping on the bare concrete floor. There is a strong smell that reminds me of the makeshift holding areas in the waiting zone at Roissy ... Most of the men have been there several days, some for a month. They do not understand why they are there. The men have been separated from the women and