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He felt very dizzy and was almost falling on the floor
The main respondent is a 27-year-old man from Algeria. The respondent states that together with a friend, on the 25th of January he left the town of Kyustendil in Bulgaria and walked for about 20 km in the forest towards the border with North Macedonia. The respondent reports that around 8 p.m., while crossing the train tracks close to the village of Prekolnitsa, he and his friend were stopped by 2 uniformed man with a dog on a leash. The respondent identifies them as Bulgarian Border Police officers due to the green clothes they were wearing.
The respondent claims that he was attacked by the dog that bit his jacket’s left sleeve and his backpack. He states that he and his friend were then taken to a police station that they reached after a 2 km long walk. According to him, in front of the station there were many police cars. The respondent recalls being taken to a room where 2 police officers in green clothes asked him questions in English: “Where do you come from? Do you have documents? Why did you come here?”. The respondent says that he showed them the card he received in the Pastrogor camp and told them that he wanted to go to North Macedonia. According to him, the officers replied that it was not possible. The respondent states that the officers repeatedly hit his head with their hands and even with the respondent’s phone that got broken. He claims that he was also beaten with a baton on his foot several times. The respondent states that he felt very dizzy and was almost falling on the floor, his head was hurting and he was crying. The respondent claims that he was beaten for what he said felt like 20 minutes or more. According to him, the police officer told the respondent to tell his friends in the camp that they should not try to cross the border, and he gave him a warning paper in Bulgarian and Arabic and let him sign it. The respondent reports that the it was written on the paper that the respondent was not allowed to try to cross the border again, or they would put him in jail. The respondent states that he didn’t receive a copy of the document. He claims that he was then left in another room together with his friend until the morning, with no food and no water, but they had access to the toilet. According to the respondent, around 6 a.m. he and his friend were driven by the police officers to a bus station, the officers talked to the bus driver in Bulgarian, the respondent and his friend had to pay 5 euros each, they got on the bus and were taken back to Sofia.
The injury to the respondent’s head a result of being hit with hands and a phone
From Sofia they then came back to the camp in Pastrogor. On the 29th of January, the respondent feels very ill and his foot is still hurting.
The injuries to the respondent’s leg as a result of being hit with a baton
legal analysis
Violation of the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Art. 5 UDHR, Art. 7 ICCPR, Art. 1 UNCAT, Art. 3 ECHR, Art. 1 and 4 EUCFR)
Where an individual is confronted with police officers, “any recourse to physical force which has not been made strictly necessary by the person’s conduct diminishes human dignity” and thus violates Art. 3 ECHR (ECtHR, Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], App no. 23380/09, 2015, §§ 81-90 and 101).
Ill-treatment constitutes inhuman or degrading treatment when the treatment or punishment causes severe physical or mental suffering, falling short of the threshold for torture but still violating human dignity.
Torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” (Art. 1 UNCAT) Police beatings in particular constitute torture where they do not occur over a short period of heightened tension and emotions and where there are aggravating factors, such as seeking a confession or conduct with racist motivation (ECtHR, Egmez v. Cyprus, App no. 30873/96, 2002, § 78).
The respondent’s ill-treatment in the police station falls within the scope of Art. 3 ECHR and could even amount to torture as it was deliberately inflicted by the police officers without any reason but to intimidate a Person on the Move. These discriminatory acts caused the respondent severe physical pain and mental suffering. He suffered beatings to his face with their hands and to his head with his phone. The latter were so severe that his phone broke and he nearly fell unconscious. The beatings with the baton injured his food so strongly that he still felt the pain days after it was inflicted.
Art. 3 ECHR also prescribes a state duty to investigate when such forms of treatment were intentionally inflicted by state agents or public authorities (see also Art. Art. 2, Art. 16 (1) CAT). Similar cases of police beatings have been reported in Bulgaria proving once more an on-going administrative practice to intimidate and humiliate People on the Move.
Violation of the right to liberty and security of a person and the freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention (Art. 3, 9 UNDHR, Art. 9 and 10 ICCPR, Art. 5 ECHR)
The detention of the respondent infringes his right to liberty and freedom from being detained arbitrarily, Art. 5 ECHR. The prohibition of arbitrary detention is an absolute and non-derogable norm of customary international law (CCPR/C/GC/35, § 66). The respondent was held overnight at the police station without charge or possibility to challenge his detention. Criminalising “irregular” migration is not a legitimate justification for the use of immigration detention (A/HRC/7/4, § 53) and has in this case led to the respondent’s arbitrary detention and deprivation of liberty.
Moreover, conditions of detention, also within the context of migration, must be compatible with respect for human dignity; the health and well-being of the detainees must be adequately secured. The respondent was detained over night without any food or water infringing the prohibition of degrading treatment, Art. 3 ECHR.
Violation of the protection of property (Art. 17 UNDHR, Art. 1 Protocol 1 ECHR)
The attack by the police dog damaged the respondent’s jacket and backpack and by hitting him on the head with his own phone, the officers broke his phone while causing him severe suffering which is a clear breach of people’s right to property and integrity of their belongings as set forth in Art. 1 Protocol 1 ECHR.
overview
2 people ,
from Algeria,
aged 27 years old.