site.btaArresting Trade Union Leader While at Work Is Form of Repression, CITUB Say, Demand Prosecutorial Check

Arresting a trade union leader while at work is a form of repression that cannot be justified on grounds of keeping the public order, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CITUB) said in a position on Friday. CITUB Vice President Todor Kapitanov was arrested during a protest of workers in State-owned forest and game farms on Trakia motorway on July 14.

The position was presented by CITUB President Plamen Dimitrov via live streaming on Facebook. CITUB insists that the Prime Minister protect the rights of workers and trade union representation, and calls on the prosecution service to conduct a full and objective investigation into the actions of the law enforcement agencies.

In Dimitrov's words, everything that happened on Trakia motorway and then at the District Police Station in the village of Trud (South Central Bulgaria) clearly qualify as police arbitrariness, which violates eleven international and legal acts. These actions of the police constitute an unlawful overstepping of authority on the part of the law enforcement authorities and raise serious doubts of abuse of power and purposeful obstruction of legitimate trade union activity, the CITUB Vice President further said.

The detention and handcuffing of the trade union representative, one of the leaders of the largest trade union organisation in Bulgaria, is a form of undue institutional pressure and an attempt to intimidate the entire trade union community, Dimitrov argued. "This is how we qualify the actions of the police," he added.

CITUB states clearly that the actions of the law enforcement authorities constitute political and institutional pressure on trade union activity, Dimitrov also noted.

On July 14, CITUB Vice President Kapitanov was taken in for questioning at the detention facility in the village of Trud shortly after the start of a protest by workers from state forestry and game farms near Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria). The union leader was released nearly three hours later, noting that the actions against him were an act of pressure and police arbitrariness. Later the same day, the director of the Regional Directorate of the Interior Ministry in Plovdiv, Stanimir Kaloferov, said that there was no evidence of police overstepping their authority with regard to Kapitanov.