Coercing people into signing papers, either through direct force or by threat of detention/deportation/further violence, is a widespread abuse which links the physical violence of European borders to the European administrative system which controls and oppresses people from a migration background.
Sometimes these documents are asylum applications, meaning that if they try to apply for asylum in another country they will be deported back, and sometimes the documents are admissions of guilt to legal charges, or ‘voluntary return’ documents. Despite this practise being systemic, widely documented, and a blatant violation of international law, authorities in other EU countries will often try to hold people to the documents that they were forced to sign.
The respondents claims that the police officers asked him to sign a testimony against a person that was accused of smuggling. The respondent refused to do so, because he didn’t know that person at all. He states that the police told him that it didn’t matter if he knew him or not, by signing the paper he would do something good for the country that granted him protection (Bulgaria). According to the respondent, the police officers became very angry after he refused to sign for a second time. He reports that they then took his fingerprints and finally let him go. He claims that he was told by his friends that 2 other persons from the camp were asked to sign the paper and actually did it.
– Respondent in Harmanli
The illegality, and the impacts of this practise for people’s livelihoods, are staggering: international law mandates that people should be informed, in a language they understand, of legal proceedings affecting them, but this practise instead denies the right to due process (such as Article 9(2) of the ICCPR) and the right to an effective remedy (Article 2(3) of the ICCPR).
