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.
This is part of a special ‘People on the Move’ series, highlighting the human rights violations faced by migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in every part of the world. These profiles are being published around the launch of Amnesty International's Annual Report 2013.
For people who flee across the European Union’s borders to seek respite from conflict or persecution, life is not always everything they might have hoped it would be.
Besides being foreigners in a new land and having to navigate the nuances of a different language and an alien culture, they are often treated with suspicion or outright hostility by residents and the authorities alike – discriminated against in law and practice.
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