The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(CPT) has slammed Greece for the conditions of Greek prisons and migrant detention center in Thursday’s 63-page report. The report finds that no improvements have been made despite recommendation.

The damning report is based on visits conducted in April, 2013, to 25 border and police stations, seven prisons and eight immigration and coast guard detention facilities. The CPT noted an increasing mistreatment of suspects by police during the arrest procedure. It criticizes overcrowding of prisons and migrant detention centers and points to staff shortage of prison guards. The committee’s 10-person delegation and five translator spent less than two weeks in the country and found the conditions “totally unacceptable” with “coherent and consistent allegations of physical ill-treatment.”

The CPT had expressed concerns over the same issues on its previous visit two years ago and nothing had been done to ease the problems at penitentiaries that were at double or even triple capacity. Inmates are forced to share beds or sleep on mattresses on the floor, whereas the men’s section of Korydallos, Greece’s largest prison, are only manned by two prison officers though there are 400 inmates.

CPT described one cell of 12 square meters that held eight people with inmates sleeping sitting on a char, a table or on cardboard on the floor.

The report mentioned one migrant station where “two or more women were held for months in a dark, moldy and dilapidated basement cell of a mere 5 square meters with no access to outdoor exercise or hygiene products.”

Another section of the report states:  “A detained person alleged that, on 12 April 2013, three officers from the Security Police Department at Aghios Panteleimonas had, after stripping him naked, subjected him to slaps, punches and kicks, and delivered several blows with a belt and an iron bar to his chest and head. When met by the delegation, he displayed a swelling on his head and complained about pain in his ribs, where he had apparently been hit with the iron bar. He also had visible bruising on his arms and legs, and a lesion on the inside of his lower lip. Further, both wrists displayed reddish marks from where he had been handcuffed.”

Not even children and teenagers are spared from ill-treatment: “One 16-year-old had been held in this cell for more than three weeks, prior to which he had spent 10 months in Komotini pre-departure centre. The conditions in the police station are totally unsuitable for holding unaccompanied minors; further, the rules applied to them were the same as those applied to criminal suspects.”

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