site.btaWatchdog Probes Alleged Discrimination After Person with Disability Is Denied Access to Sofia Buses

The Commission for Protection against Discrimination (CPD) has acted on its own initiative after a report by bTV revealed that three bus drivers of the Sofia public transport system refused to help Mihail Atanasov, a person with a disability, board their buses on October 10. For the second time in a few months, the CPD has taken up a case concerning the lack of access to Sofia's public transport suffered by people with disabilities, the CPD reported on Monday.

The Commission has contacted Atanasov to establish the facts of the case in order to initiate proceedings within the scope of its powers.

In the self-referral report, CPD Chair Elka Bozhova said that the case raises specific questions about discriminatory treatment on the grounds of disability, most likely in the form of harassment as defined by the Protection against Discrimination Act, committed through unwanted behaviour, expressed physically, verbally or otherwise, which has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the person and creating a hostile, degrading, humiliating, offensive or threatening environment. Unwanted behaviour can also carry a more general meaning, which in this case is limiting people's access to public transport.

The report states that the actions of drivers who did not provide access to transport and the negligent attitude of the Sofia Municipality and Stolichen Avtotransport EAD related to the malfunctioning of wheelchair ramps, if such is established, as well as the lack of control over the actions of drivers in assisting people with disabilities to access buses, are in direct violation of the Protection against Discrimination Act.

The CPD is calling on members of the public to improve the moral climate as well as attitudes towards people with disabilities.

In an interview with BTA earlier this month, Bozhova stated that the most common forms of discrimination occur in the exercise of the right to work.