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The main respondent is a 22-year-old from Afghanistan. The exact date and location of the incident is unclear. The respondent states that he suffered an encounter with the Bulgarian Police between the 2nd and the 4th of March. According to the respondent, after walking for four hours, he got caught by a group of uniformed people, named as “Bulgarian Police”, before attempting to cross the Bulgarian-Serbian border in a group of 20 people from Afghanistan.
The respondent reports that three police officers discovered them at 6 p.m. in the forest, followed by two police dogs. According to him, the dogs attacked the people and bit them in their legs several times, so that they were not able to walk. He claims to be suffering still from pain when walking, even two weeks after the incident. The respondent recalls losing two incisor teeth and had a swollen lip because of the police beating him in the face.

legal analysis

The ill-treatment by the three Bulgarian police officers as described by the respondent, is in 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).

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 (ECtHR, Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], App no. 23380/09, 2015, §§ 81-90 and 101). This standard has to be upheld by the state and its officials even in case of emergency, including the influx of People on the Move; any such derogation is thus prohibited as Art. 3 ECHR is one of the most fundamental values of democratic societies and interconnected with the respect for human dignity (e.g. ECtHR, El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], App no. 39630/09, 2012, § 195).

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. Only deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering amounts to torture (ECtHR, Aksoy v. Turkey, App no. 21987/93, 1997, §§ 63-64). The prohibition of torture has achieved the status of ius cogens or of a peremptory norm in international law and has been defined under Art. 1 UNCAT as: “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.” 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 falls within the scope of Art. 3 ECHR. The use of force by the three Bulgarian police officers was not provoked by the respondent; the mere fact that he was in the proximity of the Bulgarian-Serbian border does not constitute conduct that deems violence by state agents necessary. Furthermore, the ill-treatment amounts to torture as it was intentionally inflicted by the police officers causing the respondent severe physical pain and mental suffering. He endured beatings to his face resulting in losing two incisor teeth and a swollen lip. The two police dogs bit in his legs; he was unable to walk and even two weeks after the attack the injuries suffered still caused him severe pain. The attack came without prior warning and without stating a reason, thus leaving no room for a situation that could have even caused police reactions triggered by heightened tension or emotions. Having identified the respondent and the group as People on the Move near the border, the officers intimidated them out of racist motivation, especially by using police dogs as a weapon. The respondent documented his injuries on his phone providing appropriate evidence of his physical injuries following his contact with the Bulgarian police officers.

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.

Since four individuals of the group were minors, Bulgaria also acted contrary to Art. 3, Art. 19, 37 (a) and Art, 39 CRC and, being an EU Member State, contrary to Art. 24 (1), (2) EUCFR.