XVI. Surviving in Greece

Undocumented Iraqis

Many, perhaps most, of the Iraqis living in Greece do not have red cards or residence permits and are subject to arrest and deportation.  Most of these people have previously been arrested, fingerprinted, detained, and ordered to leave Greece, often multiple times.  But they stay, sometimes for many years.  They cannot go to other European countries because they would be returned to Greece and be detained again.  Yet most of these same people continue to express a fear of return to Iraq and many tell stories of having fled serious harm and threats in their homeland.

People without documents face a host of social problems.  Most undocumented Iraqis spend a great deal of time unemployed or in exploitative work situations.  They often live in dire poverty with inadequate food, health care, and shelter.  Such people also usually do not speak Greek or have any social contact with Greek people.  A 30-year-old undocumented Iraqi man from Baghdad who says that he experienced torture in Iraq before fleeing the country has been in and out of jail repeatedly in Greece, having been caught trying to enter the country, caught twice trying to leave the country, and arrested after a police raid on a hotel in downtown that houses many Iraqis.  After describing his various arrests and detentions, he said:

The problem in this country is that they take you to the police station and if you don't speak Greek they come and beat you instead of getting a translator to tell you something.  If you are sick or hungry they don't help you.  You are continuously harassed on the street.  The courts are confusing.  The judge says you are free and then the police put you in jail for three months.[288]

The life of constant anxiety takes a psychological toll.  Human Rights Watch spoke with a deeply depressed 25-year-old Iraqi former fedayeen fighter who fled Baghdad after witnessing three masked armed men enter his home and shoot and kill both of his parents.  He had already been arrested and detained twice for three months.  During one three-month detention in Venna, he had to sleep on a cold, dirty floor during the winter of 2005 until he started coughing up blood.  At first the guards wouldn't take him to the hospital.  He cut himself so they would take him, at which point he was treated for his respiratory problem.  At the time of the interview he was living in Pendeli, a run-down makeshift Iraqi camp in the suburbs of Athens.  The camp, which 10 years ago had been run by Doctors of the World, now has no electricity and receives no support from any social service agencies or charities.  The young man talked with Human Rights Watch about his psychological state:

I have tried to kill myself twice.  Even now I consider suicide.  This is not a life.  I want to leave this country.  I would prefer to go back and get killed in Iraq than live like this.  I have been here for three years.  I do day labor.  I have no place to sleep even here in Pendeli.  I sleep outside.  I move from place to place.  If I went for a red card, the police would arrest me.  I paid 100 euros for a fake red card, but I was afraid to renew it.  Now I have bad nerves.  I can't sleep.  I can't eat.  At the hospital the doctor told me to stop smoking, but I smoke three packs a day.  I'm nervous.  There's nothing else to do. [289]

Among the undocumented Iraqis are people who at one time possessed a red card but who fell out of the system by having had their asylum claims rejected, having missed deadlines for renewal of the cards, having changed address and had their claims "interrupted," or simply having lost their cards.[290]  The loss of the red card itself can have devastating consequences.  Human Rights Watch interviewed an Iraqi man-an eight-year-resident of Greece-in the Edirne Tunca jail in Turkey who was summarily expelled after his red card was stolen:

I lived in Greece for eight years, since March 2000.  I speak good Greek.  I had a red card that I renewed every six months.  On June 5, 2008, after visiting a friend in Alexandroupolis, I was waiting in the bus station there waiting to return to Athens when the security police (Asfaleia) stopped me and asked for my ID.  It was then that I discovered that my bag was stolen with my red card.  I told the police that I had a photocopy at home, but they didn't believe me.

I told them in Greek that I had legal residency in Greece, but they didn't believe me.  They took me to the police station and after three hours they took me to the border with stops in Thirea, where we picked up about 16 persons, and Orestiada, where we picked up another 25.  About 25 Greek commandos put us on a wooden motor boat in groups of ten.  I was caught by the Turkish gendarmes on the other side and brought here to Tunca.  The Turkish police beat me. I would like to contact the Greek embassy because I have residency there and permission to work in Greece.[291]

One of the ironies for long-term residents in Greece who fall out of the asylum procedure is that their children born in Greece also become undocumented along with their parents, ineligible for higher education, and susceptible to being deported with their parents. A 46-year-old Iraqi man from Dahok who has been living in Greece for 16 years was a red-card holder until two years ago when he went before the Appeals Committee and his asylum claim was denied:

I have a big problem.  I have three children in school.  Two of them are born here in Greece and have birth certificates showing they were born here.  But now they too have deportation orders.  For them to take the exams for university they need a paper showing legal residence.  They will not be able to sit for the exams and they will not be able to go to university.  I don't know what I shall do for my children. [292]

Iraqi Red-Card Holders

Few of the long-term Iraqi red-card holders Human Rights Watch interviewed expressed any confidence in their ability to become legally secure or to integrate in Greece. A high school teacher who has been living in Greece for eight years, a leader in the Christian community, expressed sentiments widely shared in his community, "No one ever gets recognized as a refugee; no one has permanent rights.  All carry the red card, at best, and some have had their red cards taken away."[293]  He continued:

Here the problem of Iraqi Christians is that we are unstable even after 10 or 15 years here.  Our rights are completely dead.  Our families are not protected.  Our children have to work rather than go to school.  I am one of the ones qualified to work, but no one will offer me a job.  We do degraded work with low wages.  Life is very severe.  There is no future here, even for our children.[294]

A 41-year-old engineer from Baghdad who left Iraq in 1995 and is married to a Greek woman but still only holds a red card said that he had a work permit and got a part-time job, but that his employer did not pay him and he was not able to recover the lost wages.[295]  He lives in fear that his red card will be taken away since his asylum claim was rejected before the 2003 war started and his appeal has never been heard.  After marrying his Greek wife, he tried to change his immigration status, and the police at first told him his red card was cancelled before eventually renewing it. "There is no law here," he said.  "Right now, I want to make a business in this country.  My wife has money.  But I can't do it with only a red card.  And I can't go to another country because of Dublin.  I need to leave Greece because there is no work, but I can't leave."[296] 

An Iraqi red card holder described how he has survived in Greece for six years:

I work maybe once a week.  Sometimes there are no jobs.  There might be a hundred people looking for a job and the boss will pick a few lucky ones.  I am usually paid 30 Euros for a full day of work.  There is a big difference between the pay for Greeks and foreigners.  Anywhere you go, if you don't speak Greek, you are second class… I still have my red card.  I've been an asylum seeker for six years.  I can't go anywhere.  I have no rights.  I live in a deserted house with no electricity or water.  To shave or bathe I have to go to a friend's house. [297]  

 

Disabled Iraqi Red-Card Holders

Particularly vulnerable Iraqi red-card holders, such as people with disabilities and the mentally ill, told Human Rights Watch that they received no assistance.  A disabled 47-year-old red-card holder from Baghdad who has been living in Greece since 1996 and has not gone before the Appeals Committee in 13 years of being an asylum seeker or received any government assistance for his disability, said that he came for a better life for his three children, but that they have no future in Greece:

The problem is that they didn't finish school here.  We got no help from the government.  My oldest child stopped going to school at age nine and started working.  I can't work. [His fingers are cut off.]  We left the jail of Iraq and came to another jail in Greece.[298] 

Human Rights Watch interviewed a middle-aged Iraqi man who appeared to suffer from depression and other mental illnesses.  He was deported from Sweden, but his wife and children are still living there.  He said, "They had my fingerprints."[299]  As he spoke he had an empty bottle of the anti-psychotic drug, Tegretol, in his hand: "I am sick.  I have emphysema.  I don't have any money to buy medicine.  I fall down in the street. I sleep in the park.  I have a red card, but they don't give me medicine.  I live in the street.  I have no money, no food."[300]

Recognized Iraqi Refugees Living in Greece

Only a small number of Iraqis have been recognized as refugees in Greece because all Iraqi asylum appeals were frozen in 2003 and not unfrozen until mid-2007 and even then only a relatively few cases have been processed (107 Iraqis were granted asylum on appeal in 2007).[301] 

Even after being granted asylum, recognized Iraqi refugees express little confidence in their ability to integrate in Greece. Human Rights Watch interviewed one of the Iraqis who was granted asylum on appeal.  The 42-year-old man left Iraq in 1995, had been living in Greece for 11 years, and was a red-card holder for the past seven years.  He said of his experience in finally being granted asylum:

I went to the Appeals Committee six months ago.  They just asked a few questions.  I had no lawyer.  I just presented myself.  I got the Alien's Residence Card for recognized refugees authorized from 2007 until 2012.  But I'm not okay.  I can't work here.  I have a war injury.  I am not eligible for social security.  I have two children who have no future in Greece.  They didn't go to school when they were younger so they have problems.[302]

 

Conditions Common to all Asylum Seekers and Migrants

Other asylum seekers face many of the same problems as Iraqis.  Certainly, the problems of gaining access to Greek territory, summary forced returns across the river border at Evros, and Coast Guard pushbacks occur without any distinction among nationalities. Police harassment of foreigners, particularly Africans and south Asians, is common in Greece.[303] 

Human Rights Watch observed Greek police frequently stopping and checking the documents of dark skinned people around the Omonia Square area in downtown Athens, where many poor foreigners are living.  Possession of a red card or other valid document does not necessarily spare foreigners from harsh police treatment.

The sense among asylum seekers of being trapped in Greece without secure protection or possibilities for work or social integration is shared by all nationality groups. A 28-year-old Sudanese man who has been living in Greece for four years described the asylum process in terms almost identical to the experience, previously noted, of many Iraqis who tried to seek asylum:

I went voluntarily to the police to ask for asylum.  I thought I would find my liberty and dignity.  I made the interview with the police. There was no translator.  The police gave me the red card together with a white paper in Greek that I didn't understand.  They didn't explain anything about the white paper.  I didn't know that it was a denial and that I only had 10 days to appeal.  If I had known, I would have appealed.

When I went to renew the red card the police took it away.  This happened on January 18, 2008.   The police said to me in English, "Leave this country."  After a few days, the police arrested me when I was walking in the street.  I was put in the jail in Kipseli for seven days.  The food was not clean and only once a day.  When they released me they gave me a paper telling me I had to leave the country in 30 days.

I tried to leave this country. I went to Santorini but they arrested me, brought me to the Athens airport and put me in jail for another three days, and then gave me another paper telling me to leave in 30 days.

How can I go to Sudan?  I don't want to kill or be killed.  I want to live in peace.  But in Greece, I face problems.  The police come to my building and they make us strip our clothes, even making us take off our pants.  They can arrest me any time.[304]

Lack of Accommodation, Social Assistance  

Asylum seekers of all nationalities who manage to obtain and maintain their red cards have little hope of receiving support from the government during the often protracted time their claims are pending. The homeless and destitute among them often lack housing accommodation and other basic forms of social assistance, in part, because Greece only has reception center spaces for 770 of the most needy and vulnerable asylum seekers.[305] 

Although three of the 10 reception centers are reserved for unaccompanied children,[306] Human Rights Watch met unaccompanied children, among others, who were living in the streets, parks, and in abandoned buildings because of a lack of accommodations and other social services.[307] A 15-year-old Nigerian boy registered with the police, but at the time Human Rights Watch interviewed him was living on the street with no assistance whatsoever:

I still don't have a place for me to live.  The lawyers gave me an appointment to have a place to live.  Now I sleep out on the streets.  I don't live anywhere.  I have cold in my body.  I don't feel safe.  I walk around until after 1 or 2 am and then I find a park to sleep in.[308]

The Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers (NOAS), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and Greek Helsinki Monitor reported jointly in April 2008 on accommodations and social conditions awaiting Dublin II returnees to Greece, finding the number of actual places available to such destitute asylum seekers to be "negligible"[309] and the conditions of the few accommodation centers "deplorable."[310]   They observed, "The large majority of asylum seekers remain completely without social assistance with regard to accommodation and/or other forms of social assistance.  Greece is in practice a country where asylum seekers and refugees are almost entirely left to their own devices."[311]