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Turkish woman beaten by Greek police in custody

23 May 2013 23:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Amnesty International has related the story of a Turkish woman who was beaten by Greek police while in custody, highlighting Greek authorities' mistreatment of migrants taking refuge in the country, APA reports quoting Todays Zaman.

Amnesty given the name of the 47-year-old woman as Deniz, a pseudonym, saying she had settled in Athens after leaving Turkey last year to escape what she called “political persecution.”

Amnesty said she had worked to support political prisoners who were on hunger strike in Turkey and that she was arrested by Turkish police several times as a result. She also claimed that she was subjected to torture in custody.

The human rights body said Deniz was lucky to have found shelter in the house of some friends while many asylum-seekers live in squalid conditions or sleep rough as a result of the limited number of places in shelters for them.

Less than a year after her arrival in Greece, Greek police in Athens arrested Deniz in February after the Turkish authorities issued an extradition request for her. The report said she was soon released on bail.

Two months later, she and her lawyer reported to Athens's Exarheia police station as part of their bail conditions on April 22. When she arrived at the police station, she was informed there was a warrant out for her arrest, and she was detained.

Amnesty said after around three hours, police transferred her by car to General Attika Police Directorate (GADA) because there was no cell for female detainees at the station. Deniz was taken to a room to be searched.

She said there was initially only one policewoman in the room with her. Although Deniz cannot speak Greek, no translator was provided.

According to Deniz, the policewoman conducted a body search by hand. When the policewoman asked her to strip naked, she refused, saying she was a refugee and that she did not want to take her clothes off. Then two policemen in civilian clothes were then called in to the room. “One of the male police officers was pulling me and the other, I believe intended to tear my clothes off,” she said.

“I understood that they were swearing at me. The female police officer was holding my hair…. One of the male officers punched me in my face…. My beating went on for approximately five minutes. Then the guard from the Exarheia police station heard my screams, entered the room and tried to take me away from [them]…. I was then transferred again to the Exarheia police station where I spent the night,” she told Amnesty.

At the end of April, the Council of Appeal Judges in Athens rejected the Turkish extradition request, meaning Deniz can remain in Greece.