Bulgarian Helsinki Committee: Police violence in the country increases

Police brutality and use of unnecessary police force have reported a positive growth, indicated the Annual Report on Human Rights in Bulgaria for 2011, presented yesterday by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC). The organisation noted that it had received many complaints about mistreatment by police officers. In some cases, the detainees were even tortured.

This type of practice has been repeatedly justified by the Minister of Interior and the Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry, stressed the BHC. The presentation of the report was also attended by Deputy Interior Minister Vesselin Vuchkov who commented that the abuse of police powers could be observed mostly during operations. According to Vuchkov, the imperfect legal base is the main reason for the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to win legal cases filed against Bulgaria, which are actually numbering over 30. He indicated that in 2011 several IM officials had been dismissed for disciplinary reasons, namely as a result of cases of police arbitrariness. In fact, the independence of the judiciary suffered serious attacks by both the executive power, especially in the face of Deputy Prime Minister Tsvetanov as well as by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and its Inspectorate, highlighted also the BHC.
According to the report conclusions, the Parliament also contributed to the vicious dependencies of the judicial system.

Overcrowded prisons

The overcrowded prisons are also connected with the violation of human rights. In 2011, journalists and editors reported about the existence of pressure, censorship and self-censorship in the Bulgarian media.
According to another conclusion of the report, the situation of ethnic discrimination practically aggravated substantially in the second half of the year with demonstrations of ethnic intolerance towards the Roma minority.

The positive aspect of the discrimination legislation

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee noted as a positive achievement the progress in the practice of the Supreme Administrative Court on the application of the Anti-Discrimination Act, although it is still connected with considerable problems. Another positive development is the bill drafted by the Ministry of Interior, which stipulates the introduction of the standard of ''absolute necessity for the use of firearms and other police-related tools''.

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