First time on video. How a Syrian refugee was shot at the Bulgarian border
This is a joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde, Sky News, ARD, The Times and Free Europe (Svobodna Evropa). Source: Free Europe / Svobodna Evropa
Increased security and overlooked violence: how the state is coping with unprecedented numbers of migrants
Two months after announcing an unprecedented surge in the number of migrants trying to enter Bulgaria, the authorities reported that they had brought the situation under control. Official state data confirms this – there has been a noticeable increase in the number of offenders detained, and reports by the interior ministry of people detained in…
PUBLIC STATEMENT on the forcible expulsion of Afghani man granted humanitarian status in Bulgaria
“I thought how beautiful shoes are, there can never be ugly shoes in this world, all shoes are beautiful” – the words of A.H., an Afghan citizen granted humanitarian status in Bulgaria, pushed back in a particularly humiliating way to the territory of Turkey on 27-28 April this year, forced to walk barefoot with bleeding…
Escalation of Push-backs from Bulgaria’s borders
Commentary from Diana Radoslavova – Director of Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria Since the beginning of 2022, more than 150 reports of unlawful practices of forcible repulsion of asylum-seekers from the territory of Bulgaria, the so-called push-backs, have been received by the „Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria“ (CLA) and…
Video: testimonies of push-backs of asylum seekers from Bulgaria to Turkey
In 2022, Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria and “Mission Wings” started to collect evidence of push-backs of asylum seekers from Bulgaria to Turkey, perpetrated by border officials. This video (in Arabic with English subtitles) contains a small part of the collected stories and will be followed by further materials documenting the human…
Bulgaria: Migrants Brutally Pushed Back at Turkish Border
(Brussels) – Bulgarian authorities are beating, robbing, stripping, and using police dogs to attack Afghan and other asylum seekers and migrants, then pushing them back to Turkey without any formal interview or asylum procedure, Human Rights Watch said today. “Bulgarian authorities are brutally and summarily pushing back migrants and asylum seekers across the land border with Turkey,”…
Pushed beyond the limits. Urgent action needed to stop pushbacks at Europe’s borders
“The scale and normalisation of pushbacks at Europe’s borders requires urgent and concerted action by governments and parliamentarians”, said today Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, while releasing a Recommendation to member states’ governments and parliamentarians outlining the widespread occurrence of pushbacks and related human rights violations at land and sea…
Commentary – Externalization, Returns and Border Control – the Migration Agenda of the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council
by Radostina Pavlova, Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria Bulgaria has assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU at a pivotal moment in European policy making in the area of migration and asylum. Thus, there is truth to the words of Jean-Claude Juncker spoken before the European Parliament Plenary on January 17,…
Humanitarian safe passages still a chimera in the EU
By Borislav Dimitrov, boryslav.p@gmail.com On March 7th, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in the case of X and X v État belge (Case C-638/16 PPU) that Member States are not required, under the Visa Code Regulation (the “Visa Code”) and European Union (EU) law in general, to grant a humanitarian…
NGOs report widespread push-back practices and denial of access to state territory to asylum seekers in Central and Eastern Europe
In the beginning of 2017 the Hungarian Helsinki Committee published the report “Pushed Back at the Door: Denial of Access to Asylum in Eastern EU Member States” describing push-back practices in 5 countries from Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. The report found that the increased border control and…