24

Bulgaria,

The main respondent is a 28-year-old man from Syria. According to the respondent, on the 12th of January 2024, a fight between two Syrian groups happened inside the Harmanli camp around 7 a.m. while the respondent was sleeping. He claims that after the fight ended, without intervention of security services, the authorities came to the camp to look for suspects. It was at 9 a.m. The respondent reports that while looking for suspects, by comparing pictures they received to inhabitants of the camp, the authorities closed the camp for 4 hours forbidding anyone to get out of the camp. The respondent reports that 7 police cars and about 10 police officers were involved. According to the videos shown by the respondent, 4 cars were belonging to the Gendarmerie services and the rest to Regular Bulgarian police services.
Among the 10 officers involved, the respondents reports that two of them were violent, they were part of the gendarmerie services. According to the respondent, during the lockdown, authorities searched all of the rooms and buildings of the camp, they ravaged the rooms looking for weapons. He reports that they also took the cooking devices such as oven and stoves even though the inhabitants do not have access to a common kitchen or to proper meals within the camp (the respondent mentions very small quantities and non-nutritious meals one being for breakfast and the other at 4 p.m.). The respondent states to have been stopped and required to show his face to a police officer to compare with the suspects’ picture. According to him, while the officer acknowledged that the respondent was not the suspect they were looking for, he got pushed away by a punch in the chest. The respondent claims to have witnessed officers gathering inhabitants outside, in a circle. He reports that the police officers placed themselves in the middle and when one of the inhabitants started talking to his friend he got slapped in the face to make him stop. The respondent also reports that the authorities involved took the camp IDs of about 500 persons to give them to camp administration. It resulted in an operation of identity verification which took place outside for a couple of hours, while the temperatures that day were below 0 degrees Celsius. The respondent states that only one surveillance camera in the camp is not broken and that the rest had never been repaired. He claims that therefore the population inside of the camp does not feel safe as fights can happen without security being involved, the witness reports that security is inactive inside of the camp and only stays at the outside door, but also that no police violence can be proven or recorded.

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 camp personell’s, including the administrator’s inactiveness to protect the camp resdidents and his involvement with the police hindered the respondent to effectively challenge 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.

overview

1 people ,

from Syria,

aged 28 years old.