site.btaCouncil of Europe Anti-torture Committee Publishes report on Bulgaria

POLITICS-COUNCIL OF EUROPE-BULGARIA-REPORT

Council of Europe Anti-torture Committee Publishes report on Bulgaria


Strasbourg, January 29 (BTA corr. Nikolay Jeliazkov) - The
Council of Europe's Committee for
the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CPT) on Thursday published the report on its visit
to
Bulgaria in March/April 2014, and the response of the Bulgarian
authorities. The visit provided an opportunity to review the
implementation of recommendations made after the Committee's
previous visits, with particular attention paid to the treatment
 of persons in police custody and of juveniles in penitentiary
establishments, as well as the conditions of detention and the
provision of healthcare in prisons.

The Committee notes that the vast majority of its long-standing
recommendations, some of them dating back to the very first
periodic visit to Bulgaria in 1995, remain unimplemented, for
example as regards ill-treatment (both in the police and prison
context), inter-prisoner violence, prison overcrowding, material
 conditions of detention in investigation detention facilities
(IDF) and prisons, prison health care, staffing levels, as well
as discipline, segregation and contact with the outside world.
The CPT is of the view that urgent and effective action must now
 be taken to address all these concerns.

Many allegations of deliberate physical ill-treatment of persons
 detained by the police (including juveniles and women) were
received. In some isolated cases, they were of such a severity
that they could amount to torture (e.g. truncheon blows on the
soles of the feet, blows with truncheons inflicted to a person
attached with handcuffs to hooks fixed to a door frame - and
thus immobilised in a hyperextended position - and infliction of
 electric shocks using an electrical discharge weapon). In
several cases, medical evidence supporting the allegations was
found. No improvements have been noted as to the practical
implementation of the safeguards against police ill-treatment:
persons in police custody are rarely put in a position to notify
 promptly their next-of-kin of their detention and hardly ever
benefit from the presence and the services of a lawyer during
the initial period of 24 hours of police custody.
 
Prison overcrowding remains a very serious problem despite a
drop in the prison population since the last CPT visit in 2012.
In addition, the 2014 visit confirmed the endemic problem of
corruption. As regards more specifically Burgas Prison, the CPT
is very concerned that the Bulgarian authorities seem not to
have fully realised the extreme gravity of the situation in that
 establishment.

No allegations of physical ill-treatment by prison officers were
 received at Vratsa Prison, which was not the case at Belene
Prison, where several credible such allegations were heard. The
situation was markedly worse at Burgas and Sofia prisons, where
a significant number of such allegations were gathered. In
several cases, the delegation's medical members observed and
described recent lesions on the bodies of inmates. The CPT was
also struck by the situation at Boychinovtsi Correctional Home,
where the vast majority of the interviewed juvenile inmates
complained of being regularly beaten by custodial staff.

The Committee was very concerned that no measures have been
taken to combat the phenomenon of inter-prisoner violence which
was widespread at Sofia Prison and literally omnipresent at
Burgas Prison.

The severe shortage in health-care staffing levels observed in
all prisons visited rendered extremely difficult the provision
of health care worthy of the name. The CPT has again called for
a considerable reinforcement of the health-care teams at all the
 prisons visited.

The review of the situation of life-sentenced prisoners
demonstrated that little had been done to improve their
conditions in the light of the CPT's long-standing
recommendations. In addition, no progress had been made as
regards the removal from the Criminal Code of the sentence of
"life imprisonment without the right to substitution".