Human Rights Watch World Report 1997 - Bulgaria
| Publisher | Human Rights Watch |
| Publication Date | 1 January 1997 |
| Cite as | Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1997 - Bulgaria, 1 January 1997, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a8b05c.html [accessed 5 June 2023] |
| Comments | This report covers events of 1996 |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Human Rights Developments
Despite some progress in holding police officers accountable for violence directed at persons in custody, police misconduct remained a dominant human rights problem in Bulgaria throughout 1996. Police brutality was directed primarily at ethnic minorities, but attacks on ethnic Bulgarians and children were also commonplace. Special police force units known as Red Berets routinely mistreat people on the pretext of addressing the burgeoning problem of organized crime in Bulgaria. On April 8, 1996, the Bulgarian daily Standard (Sofia) reported that forty masked policemen raided the offices of a private firm. The police beat some employees into unconsciousness, broke windows, and destroyed equipment. The special forces executed a similar operation in late November 1995 in the Druzhba district in Sofia. Standard reported that eleven Red Berets stormed a cafe and beat several persons so severely that six victims required emergency surgery. No officer serving in the special forces has ever been charged with any offense related to such instances of police abuse. Bulgaria made some progress in prosecuting police officers responsible for the deaths of suspects in custody. The Bulgarian daily Twenty-Four Hours (Sofia) reported on June 10, 1996, that a Sofia military court convicted six policemen of killing or helping to kill twenty-two-year-old Hristo Hristov in April 1995 after he had been arrested on suspicion of theft. The police beat Mr. Hristov to death in a police cell where his parents found him dead and handcuffed to a radiator. Four of the convicted officers received prison terms of between four and twenty years and two received suspended sentences. Ethnically motivated violence continued to dominate the human rights landscape in Bulgaria in 1996. The Roma minority was specially targeted both by the police and by xenophobic "skinhead" groups. On March 25, 1996, an off-duty police officer in the city of Russe used his identification documents to gain entrance to a Roma home. The officer held Paun Marinov and Veska Marinova at gunpoint and, claiming that the couples' identification documents were not in order, demanded money. The couple refused to pay whereupon the policeman beat them and other members of their family. No charges were brought against the officer. In only one known instance have suspected police officers been prosecuted for mistreatment of Roma. On March 4, 1996, two officers were tried by the Pleven Military Court and sentenced to eight months in prison and suspended for three years for severely beating two Roma teenagers in Vidin in April 1995. For the first time in the history of Bulgaria, a Roma man who was beaten by the police sued the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs for damages. On December 15, 1995, the Regional Court in the city of Pazardzhik ordered the Ministry to pay damages to twenty-two-year-old Kiril Yosifov. Mr. Yosifov was beaten and tortured by the police during an organized raid in his neighborhood on June 29, 1992. The court awarded Mr. Yosifov damages for the bodily injury and moral degradation he suffered. Attacks against Roma by "skinhead" groups continued throughout 1996 and perpetrators were rarely prosecuted. Roma street children claim that they are attacked frequently and receive no assistance from the police. (See also Children of Bulgaria: Police Violence and Arbitrary Confinement in the Children's Rights Project section). On January 4, 1996, a group of twenty "skinheads" armed with knives and chains attacked several homeless Roma children who were sleeping at the railway station in Sofia. Eighteen-year-old Velichka Hristova Ognjanova was stabbed repeatedly. The "skinheads" were taken to the police precinct but later were released. Freedom of expression suffered serious setbacks during 1996 as the Bulgarian government further infringed on the autonomy of the media. On September 5, 1996, the government passed the Radio and TV Law, over President Zhelyu Zhelev's veto, creating a National Radio and Television Council responsible for monitoring broadcasts and appointing directors to state radio and television. The law ensures that the ruling party has the power to elect the majority of council directors and gives directors power to cancel programs and suspend broadcast licenses by taking into consideration "universally accepted moral values" and the "protection of the national and spiritual values of the Bulgarian people." Attacks on media freedom also resulted in the firing of seven senior journalists from Bulgarian National Radio(BNR)on December 18, 1995. In November 1995, the reporters signed a declaration accusing the management of BNR of censorship. According to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the dismissals reflected "an atmosphere of lawlessness and administrative arbitrariness in the national electronic media." In June 1996, Bulgaria's Minister of the Interior requested that the National Assembly lift the moratorium on the death penalty, first implemented in July 1990. As a condition of admission to the Council of Europe, Bulgaria was required to impose the moratorium on executions with the expectation that the death penalty would be abolished. As of this writing, the parliament has taken no action on the minister's request. Attacks on gay people in Bulgaria appeared to grow in both frequency and scope. On July 9, police broke into the Sofia offices of the Flamingo Center, a publisher of gay- and lesbian-interest books, arrested staff, and confiscated office equipment and all publications. Two days later, a police raid resulted in mass arrests of both Bulgarians and foreigners at a "gay beach." There was considerable harassment of several religious groups in 1996, including the imprisonment of Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors to military service, police raids of religious meetings in private homes, and government interference in the election of religious officials within spiritual communities. In January, five Protestant sects issued a joint statement protesting systematic official and private discrimination against Protestants; as of this writing, there has been no official response.The Right to Monitor
There were no reported violations of the right to monitor.The Role of the International Community
European Union
In November 1995, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for Bulgaria and Romania to be removed from the list of countries whose nationals need a visa to enter the European Union. In March, Bulgarian government officials came to an understanding with the E.U. with regard to being removed from the E.U. visa "blacklist" in the near future.United States
The U.S. granted Bulgaria permanent Most Favored Nation trade status (MFN) on July 18, 1996. There was no debate in the U.S. Congress over Bulgaria's human rights record, and the Clinton administration failed to raise concerns about human rights violations prior to the president's signing the MFN legislation. The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 contained an accurate and thorough report on the human rights situation in Bulgaria.Copyright notice: © Copyright, Human Rights Watch
