Identity documents, please!

Identity documents,

please!

Boyko BOEV If you’re reading this article, then you have chosen it over the other articles in Obektiv. There’s nothing wrong with that - you have the freedom to choose, to have a preference for one thing over another. But what would you say if I were a police officer, and you saw me in the street, stopping only women in their 20s and 30s for document inspection? You would probably find such behaviour quite disturbing - even more so if I were to stop you, and detain you for an inexplicably long time before returning your identity card.

Police officers have the authority to stop citizens and ask them to present their identity documents. So why would you think that unlike your choice to read this article, a police officer choosing to stop only women of a certain age group is disturbing?

The disturbing part is that unlike you, a police officer has been given a certain amount of power, and he is probably expressing his preferences with regard to women in exercising that power. The law would categorise such behaviour by a police officer in two ways: as abuse of power and as discrimination. If proven, either of those behaviours is punishable by law.

I hasten to add that I am not going to discuss a rude policeman who tries to pick up women by stopping them on the street. I used this example in order to illustrate that expressing one’s preferences in the exercise of authority poses a problem. This is because the Constitution proclaims the equality of all citizens before the law enforcement bodies.

Now I’ll ask you something else: How many times have you been stopped in the street by the police and had your identity documents checked? In all the 16 years I’ve had my ID card, I have never been stopped for a check. I’ve asked many of the people I know whether they have had their ID documents checked in the street, and it turns out that some of them have had quite different experiences from me. I’ll relate what I heard from them in two stories: one of them African and the other Roma.

There aren’t many articles in the press about the lives of black immigrants in Bulgaria. Up until 15 years ago, there were more of them than there are now. At that time we accepted black African students as a show of solidarity in the struggle of their nations against colonialism and world imperialism. Today, however, the stories I’ve heard from Africans leave me with the impression that the police attitude towards them is far from one of brotherly solidarity. Black Africans complain that they are often stopped in the street by police officers wanting to check their ID documents. One of them told me

he gets stopped and asked for his documents every time he goes out dressed casually. His explanation was that when he’s wearing a suit, the police must assume he is a diplomat. There’s even a running joke amongst the Africans in Sofia, that when they’re in the city centre they can’t keep their identity documents in their pockets, because every police officer they meet stops them for a check them.

The Roma story isn’t very different from the African one. I was told this story by Roma taking part in a focus group organized by the Centre for the Study of Democracy. It turned out that all of the male participants had been stopped and had their ID documents checked at least once, and one of them said he gets checked every time he comes to the Sofia city centre.

What happens to those who are checked? Both the Africans and the Roma said that when the police inspect their ID documents they also ask what they’re doing in the centre and whether they have criminal records. According to one of my sources, who is black, the police officers look to find anything out of order when they stop him. If foreigners don’t have, or have forgotten, their identity documents, they have to pay a bribe or risk being taken in to the police station, or even arrested or deported. In the worst scenario they could be held for months before being released, or until they leave the country.

My Roma sources also told me that when they don’t have their documents on them they are routinely taken to the police station. One of the participants in the focus group stated that police officers are in the habit of stopping cars near the Roma neighbourhood where he lives, because they know that most Roma don’t have driving licences and will be forced to pay a bribe in order to avoid being penalised. The Roma I interviewed also said that when at the police station, they were questioned regarding matters having nothing do with verification of their identity, including whether they knew certain people, what they did for a living, or whether they had committed any crimes.

Out of consideration for public security, someone might say, so what if Gypsies are those most often stopped to have their ID documents checked and taken to the police station? Isn’t that the way to solve crimes and guarantee our security? This is a logical argument.

But are we prepared to pay for it with our own personal freedom? Would we allow someone to enter into and rummage about in our homes on a regular basis, just because that’s the way to catch people who engage in the criminal activities of using unlicensed software or listening to pirate CDs? Besides, what kind of trust would we have in the police, if in their war on drugs officers

were to begin conducting mass searches of all men who go to bars in the evenings, just because most drug-dealers are men? Do we really want some Big Brother randomly checking up on us?

In order to shed some light on the information I had collected from my African and Roma sources, I met with the chiefs of the Guard Force of the National Police Service. I contacted them because the police officers we see patrolling the city centre and other neighbourhoods are employees of that division. The words ·racism” and ·discrimination” provoked an instantaneous reaction in my interviewees.

Even though I wasn’t accusing anyone of this, I was informed that the police are not racists and that they do not discriminate. However, I was not able to find out how the police know this, since the administration doesn’t keep any data on who the police officers stop for ID inspection, how many of them are taken in to the police station for identity verification, nor what ethnic or racial groups they belong to.

In order to prevent discriminatory and racist practices, police officers in other countries must register each instance in which they stop someone, including noting the ethnicity of the person(s) they stop.

The person receives a copy of this record, and there is thus a guarantee that the inspections are not arbitrary. Personal data such as the person’s name and address are not recorded, because the aim is not to collect personal information but rather statistical information about the police officer’s activity. On the basis of this information, both the police administration and society at large are able to get an idea of how the patrol officers conduct their work. This is not done here, thus establishing conditions not only for corruption, but also for discriminatory attitudes in stopping and checking citizens.

On 9 December 2004, the House of Lords sued the British government for racial discrimination against a Czech citizen of Roma descent. The reason for this was the British immigration authorities’ systematic practice of stopping Roma travelling to England at the Prague airport. The immigration officials were using this tactic in an attempt to prevent any eventual filing of asylum claims. The statistical evidence in this case showed that the odds of a passenger of Roma origin being stopped from travelling to England were 400 times greater than that for passengers of non-Roma origin. As in the instances discussed in this article of ID inspections in the street, this case dealt with an instance of indirect discrimination. This is what we call discrimination that does not exist in the law itself, but the law is enforced by the authorities in a discriminatory way. The decision of the highest court in Great Britain showed that the authorities do not have unlimited discretion with regard to existing legislation and the application thereof, and are also responsible for instances of indirect discrimination. This is, in fact, also stated in our Act for Protection from Discrimination.

Tariffs for coloured people Antoine MAKITOU Some institutions - more specifically, the police - can provoke serious outbursts of violence, even when their methods are not openly racist. The results of an official study* reveal that the behaviour of law enforcement officials often increases ethnic and social tension. Incidents that end up in violence, with racism standing out as a key factor, are not infrequent. A large part of the data in the report ·CrossBorder Migration and Human Rights Violations” show that racial discrimination, both in the inspection of identity documents by police and in hiring and housing policies, is widespread.

In 50 interviews conducted amongst African immigrants, 85% of them claimed to have been the target of xenophobic statements and/or actions by the police. About 75% of those surveyed admitted that police officers had said to them, while checking their identity documents, ·You are scum, and it’s time you return to the jungle.” Almost all of those surveyed share the opinion that their only major problem in Bulgaria is the attitude of the police, above all towards black immigrants. Human rights activists have documented the case of an African refugee who filed a complaint at a regional police station against skinheads who had nearly beaten him to death. In response to his complaint, the police sent skinheads to him, who told him, ·Don’t be surprised by anything you see here or anything that happens to you - it won’t be an accident!” Furthermore, 75% of those interviewed admitted to having been attacked by skinheads, some of them two or three times, and said their attempts to ask for help and cooperation from the police had been cut off. They had often heard statements as ·What are you doing in our country?”, or other expressions of xenophobia.

The truth is that there is no state or official institution on earth that admits to having racism or xenophobia. So no matter how much one denies the existence of prejudice and discrimination against immigrants - and especially Africans - the facts demonstrate that the actions of the police are precisely of that nature: prejudiced and discriminatory.

Law enforcement officials do not stop foreigners in order to verify their ID documents, but rather because they know that’s how they can earn their daily fee! It’s got to the point where an officer looks disappointed when a foreigner has the proper documents (·No way anyone can get you, eh...”).

According to those surveyed, the ·fine” for not having the proper documents ranges between 10 to 20 euros or more.

In a modern democratic society, police officers should have a good understanding of the nature of prejudice and discrimination and the ways in which they are detrimental to the achievement of the common goal - that of fair and equitable service to all. * The study ·Cross-Border Migration and Human Rights Violations” was conducted by the Open Society Foundation in cooperation with the BHC Refugees and Migrants Legal Protection Programme in 2004.