Human
rights news: March 2005
|
21 March 2005 |
:: NEWS :: |
|
The Annual Report of the BHC reports little progress in the human rights
situation in Bulgaria in 2004
|
|
|
|
In its annual report in the human rights situation in Bulgaria in 2004, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee reports that there was small progress in the protection from torture and ill-treatment, and protection from discrimination. The organization also reports about grave violations of the freedom of religion, and a standstill in other spheres. At a press conference on 21 March 2005, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) launched its annual report on the state of human rights in Bulgaria in 2004. In the report, the organization notes a small progress in the protection from torture after the closure of several investigation detention centers and the drop in the share of complaints from police ill-treatment received from interviews with inmates in three prisons. "Nevertheless, the situation if far from satisfactory; the conditions in many of the places of detention continue to be inhuman, and the share of those who complain from ill-treatment during arrest by the police, continues to be alarmingly high," said Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the BHC. There is some progress in the protection from discrimination with the entry into force of the Protection from Discrimination Act and the first cases in which Bulgarian courts found companies guilty of committing acts of ethnic discrimination against Roma. "In spite of the successes, the failure to set up the anti-discrimination commission, as envisaged by law, reveals the lack of political will in the Bulgarian authorities to fight this phenomenon," said Margarita Ilieva. The BHC also notes a serious problem in regard to violation of the freedom of religion in Bulgaria in 2004 with the police and prosecutor's raid from July 2004. As a result of this raid, the clergy from the so called "Alternative Synod" were turned out of the churches they had been serving for years. "The raid of the police and the prosecutor's office was the gravest human rights violation during 2004 and the gravest violation of the right to freedom of religion since 1989," said BHC Board member Emil Cohen. In most of the other spheres, the BHC notes a standstill. Serious human rights problems persist - e.g. excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies, discrimination and violence that resulted in deaths of people with mental illness, placed in state institutions, violations of freedom of expression, and lack of adequate programs for deinstitutionalisation of children in state institutions. In the sphere of freedom of expression, the cases against the BBC journalists and the Romanian journalist George Buhnici marked a step backwards. The text of the annual Report is available in Bulgarian (in word
or html). An English-language
summary is also available. The full text of the report in English
will be available on April 10 in the Special Reports section of the web
site. |