25
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.
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.

legal analysis

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 determination of deprivation of liberty always depends on the specific situation of the individual concenred while taking into account all relevant factors, “such as the type, duration, effects and manner of implementation of the measure in question” (Guzzardi v. Italy, App. 7367/76, 1980, § 92). The right to liberty may only be derogated from “in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed” (see e.g. Art. 4 ICCPR).
The deprivation of liberty in form of detention or arrest is arbitrary when the law itself or its application by law enforcement are manifestly disproportionate, unjust, unpredictable and discriminatory.
The above-mentioned articles also protect the security of a person “from injury to the body and the mind, or bodily and mental integrity”, regardless of whether “the victim is detained or non-detained”. Death threats, assassination attempts, harassment and intimidation reach the threshold of violation.

The respondent and the other residents were not allowed to leave the camp for four hours and he partly had to spend this time outside by a temperature below zero degrees Celcius. Despite the fact that the officers admitted that the respondent did not match the person on the photo and was hence not who they were looking for, he was treated as suspect and forced by police officers to stand outside in a circle. The police thus acted manifestly disproportionate, unjust and unpredictable and overall arbitrarily. This forced confinement and the detention-like conditions without legal justification violate the right to liberty and security of a person and the freedom from arbitrary detention.


Violation of the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Art. 5 UDHR, Art. 7 ICCPR, Art. 1, 16 UNCAT, Art. 3 ECHR, Art. 1 and 4 EUCFR)

For ill-treatment to fall within the scope of Art. 3 ECHR, it must “attain a minimum level of severity”; the act must cause sufficiently serious suffering or humiliation to the victim. This depends on all circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, physical and mental effects. However, 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 (Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], App. 23380/09, 2015, §§ 81-90 and 101). This standard has to be upheld by the state and its officials even in case of emergeny; any such derrogation is thus prohibited as Art. 3 ECHR is one of the most fundamental values of democatric societies and interconnected with the respect for human dignity (e.g. El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], 2012, § 195). Police beatings in particual 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 (Egmez v. Cyprus, App. 30873/96, 2002, § 78).

The authorites punched the respondent in the chest, slapped him in the face and forced him to stand outside for several hours by below zero degrees Celsius. The physical violence and the intimidating and coercive measures in addition to detention-like conditiosn caused the respondent severe mental and physical suffering contrary to Art. 3 ECHR. Due to heightended tensions, the ill-treatment by the authorites does not reacht the threshold of torture.


Violation of the right to respect private and family life (Art. 12, UNDHR, Art. 17 ICCPR, Art. 8 ECHR, Art. 7 EUCFR)

The invasion of privacy during the searches of all rooms and buildings in the camp and the taking of 500 camp IDs, including the respondent’s, was without proper cause since these actions were not restricted to the actual incident the police was called for and thus violate the right to privacy.


Violation of right to good administration and the right to an effective remedy (Art. 2(3) ICCPR, Art. 13 ECHR, Art. 41, 47 ECUFR)

The failure to maintain a safe and secure environment in the camp, combined with the reported police violence, suggests significant breaches of the rights of the camp residents. The lack of adequate living conditions (no acces to a common kitchen or to proper meals within the camp, only very small quantities of non-nutritious meals for breakfast and one at 4 p.m.) and security measures (non-functioning surveillance cameras) as well as the failure to ensure the safety and dignity of the camp residents (inactive security personell), including the respondent, are contrary to the right to good administration. Moreover, the non-functioning security mechanisms were unfit to record the ill-treatment by the police nor was the respondent able to effectively challenge any measures taken against him or seek redress for violations, breaching the right to an effective remedy.


Violation of the protection of property (Art. 17 UNDHR, Art. 1 Protocol 1 ECHR)

The authorities ravaged the rooms and took cooking devices such as ovens and stoves belonging to the camp residents 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.