site.btaCouncil of Europe Calls for Measures "at the Highest Political Level" Against Ill-treatment in Bulgaria's Penitentiaries

Council of Europe Calls for Measures "at the Highest Political Level" Against Ill-treatment in Bulgaria's Penitentiaries

Brussels/Strasbourg, November 12 (BTA Correspondent Nikolay
Jeliazkov) - The Council of Europe's Committee for the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CPT) published Thursday the report on its most
recent visit to Bulgaria  ( February 13 to 20, 2015). In its
report, the CPT urges the Bulgarian authorities to "take
exhaustive measures at the highest political level to ensure
that there is 'zero tolerance' of ill-treatment in all
penitentiary establishments in Bulgaria".

The CPT calls on Bulgarian authorities to ensure that the
victims of ill-treatment by the police or in prisons are seen by
 a doctor and the data on their injuries are recorded, as well
as that every case of a detainee making allegations of
ill-treatment gets investigated.

The document specifies that the CPT has carried out nine visits
to Bulgaria since 1995. "Major shortcomings have been identified
 during these visits, especially as concerns the police and
penitentiary establishments, and repeated recommendations have
been made concerning these two areas. Regrettably, the vast
majority of the Committee's long-standing recommendations
remained unimplemented," the report reads.

"The degree of co-operation received during the [latest] visit
from the Bulgarian authorities was good. However, a number of
inmates interviewed were clearly afraid to speak with the
delegation and those who did speak feared possible reprisals for
 having done so. The Committee wishes to stress that any
retaliatory action against a detained person for seeking to
communicate or for having communicated with the CPT would be one
 of the most serious failures of co-operation under Article 3 of
 the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment," the document
reads further.

The CPT reports of a rising number of allegations of deliberate
physical ill-treatment of persons detained by the police. "Very
little progress, if any, has been made as regards guaranteeing
the practical implementation of the legal safeguards against
police ill-treatment," the report reads. The vast majority of
persons interviewed by the
CPT delegation stated that they had not received information
about their rights after being detained by the police and had
not benefited from the services of a lawyer from the very outset
 of their detention. Furthermore, medical examination of persons
in police custody was limited to a few general questions, no
physical inspection took place and the injuries were usually not
 recorded.

"The CPT calls upon the Bulgarian authorities to incentivise
police officers to report ill-treatment by colleagues; there
must be a clear understanding that accountability for
ill-treatment extends beyond the actual perpetrators to anyone
who knows, or should know, that ill-treatment is occurring and
fails to act to prevent or report it," the document reads
further. "The Committee has repeatedly called upon the Bulgarian
 authorities to establish a national system for compiling
statistics on complaints, prosecutions and disciplinary and
criminal penalties imposed on law enforcement officials related
to ill-treatment."

The CPT also reports that overcrowding still remains a
problematic issue, if not for the penitentiary system as a
whole, then for the prisons and closed-type prison hostels in
particular. It recommends that the Bulgarian authorities develop
 the policy to increase the resort to non-custodial measures and
 alternatives to custodial sentences. The CPT also recommends
that: cell occupancy rates be reduced with a view to offering a
minimum of 4 sq m of living space per detainee in multiple
occupancy cells; all inmates be provided access to a proper
toilet facility at all times; ventilation, heating and access to
 natural light and artificial lighting in the cells be improved;
 the maximum period for solitary confinement as a punishment be
no more than 14 days for a given offence, and preferably lower.

The CPT goes on to say that corruption remains endemic in the
Bulgarian prison system and it should be fought through
prevention, education and the application of appropriate
sanctions.
 
The delegation was "flooded" with allegations of deliberate
physical ill-treatment at the investigation detention facility
(IDF) located on Sofia's G.M. Dimitrov Boulevard, and at the
prisons in Sofia, Bourgas and Varna.

The vast majority of persons held in Sofia IDF spent at least 23
 hours a day locked up inside their cells with no organised
activities, therefore the CPT urges the Bulgarian
authorities to intensify their efforts to develop the programme
of activities for both sentenced and remand prisoners, notably
as regards work, educational and vocational activities.

The CPT also calls upon the Bulgarian authorities to take urgent
 steps to reinforce the health-care resources because the
current staffing situation in all the prisons visited (and the
IDF in Sofia) render the provision of health care virtually
impossible. "The quality of medical recording of injuries had
even worsened and keeping of the register on traumatic injuries
had been altogether discontinued at Sofia and Bourgas prisons
shortly after the CPT's 2014 visit," the report reads further.
 
The CPT's report was published together with the response of the
 Bulgarian authorities, at their own request. In their response,
 the authorities acknowledge the findings of the CPT, set out
proposals to address the concerns raised and, where applicable,
describe in detail the measures taken or planned to this end.

Reacting to the Bulgarian Government's response, Council of
Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland welcomed it as
"positive and constructive". "It is particularly encouraging to
see that the authorities express a strong will to remedy the
situation: they outlined detailed measures and have already
engaged in implementing some of them," he noted.