“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…
by Radostina Pavlova, radostinapav@gmail.com On April 12, 2019, the Bulgarian National Assembly voted in second reading to adopt a Bill to Amend and Complement the Law on Foreigners in R. Bulgaria (LFRB) (in Bulgarian). In addition to the LFRB, the Bill will see changes of some of the provisions of the Law on Asylum and…
The Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria was invited to provide input to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) for its upcoming session to examine the 6th report of Bulgaria. The meeting with NGOs will take place on 21 February in Geneva. In its submission, the CLA highlights six…
by Andreas Aravossitas The Council of Europe (COE) has recently published two reports on Bulgaria, after sending delegations in the end of 2017 to observe and report on the situation of asylum seekers, migrants and other foreign nationals in Bulgaria. These delegations produced two very enlightening reports on the current situation in Bulgarian administrative detention…
by Andreas Aravossitas Canada is often regarded as an exemplary industrialized democracy that excels at handling immigration issues and is welcoming to refugees and migrants. The truth, however, is far from perfect in relation to detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers. While there are certain areas where Canada’s immigration detention system appears to be fair,…
Narek arrives in Bulgaria when he is 6 months old with his mother and spends his entire life in Bulgaria. He is now 23 years old. His native language is Bulgarian, he graduated from a Bulgarian school and Bulgaria is the only country he considers his home. He is Bulgarian by all natural laws, but in…
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,…
By Borislav Dimitrov (Penkov) Last month, the Madrid City Council announced its plans to work on preventing the detention of migrants in irregular situation in the Identification and Expulsion Center of the city. It published a working paper on the issue, which was based on the conclusions drafted by a working group consisting of various…
Photo by Victoria Nicolova On 14.07.2017, Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria (CLA) and Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights (BLHR) submitted to the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria a joint statement on the Bill to Amend and Complement the Ministry of Interior Act (the Bill), which was posted on the public discussion Internet…
Photo: Victoria Nicolova The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)[1] adopted on 11 May 2017 its concluding observations on the combined twentieth to twenty-second periodic reports of Bulgaria. CERD welcomes some positive amendments of the national legislation, namely the amendments to the Law on Foreigners in 2013 to prohibit the detention…