All

Members of European Parliament warn:

Ataka threatens the foundations of liberal democracy

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Emil COHEN

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he political fashion of the day is the Ataka party. MPs, party leaders and journalists are in a search for a way to reduce the attacking threat. What are their arguments? The Ataka representatives are populists, they say, extremists who threaten the status quo, make empty promises and rock the government boat, which is heading to the harbour of the European Union. This is the usual argument against Ataka: they are harmful because they are in the way of Bulgaria’s EU accession. The fact that Ataka’s views threaten the value systems of liberal democracy and are in their essence fascist is hardly ever mentioned in Bulgaria. No one is talking about the fact that in the 17th year of the democratic changes in Bulgaria, there is a vast number of people who have no objection to embracing fascism as their main credo. It seems that our politicians and their strategies hold that if the name of the disease is not said out loud, it may be more easily dealt with.

In Europe, apparently, there is a different view on the issue. Many people in Europe think that fascism is not a political opponent like the others. And in contrast to domestic analysts who coined the term ·anti-system” party, so they don’t have to admit that we are dealing with a new kind of homegrown fascism, five prominent members of the European Parliament (among whom Els de Groen, well known for her activity in the field of protection of Roma rights, rights of the child, and people with mental disorders; Geoffrey Van Orden, European Parliament Rapporteur for Bulgaria; Eric Meijer and Alexander Lambsdorf, rapporteurs for EP political fractions; and prominent socialist Michael Kashman) call the things by their real names. They wrote a ·Declaration for Protection of the People in Bulgaria from Neo-totalitarianism” and started gathering support for it. If by June this year the declaration is supported by half the members of the European Parliament, it will become an official statement of the legislative institution of the European Union. If it does not, it will represent the opinion solely of the people who have signed it.

The important thing here is not the number of signatures the declaration will get, but the approach to the problem. What is the threat to Bulgaria, according to the five MEPs? Populism, extremism, nationalism, the rejection of the European Union? It is none of these. The biggest threat to the Bulgarian people, according to the five MEPs, is the agitation against Turks, Roma and Jews (which today has become a daily routine for the Ataka newspaper and the SKAT TV station), the denial of the Holocaust (we only need to read what Ataka leader Volen Siderov has written in his books The Boomerang of Evil about ·the Holocaust deception”), and in the appeals to go back to totalitarian methods of rule (what is meant here probably is the so called “·Nationalisation Bill”). ·Considerable danger” for all Bulgarians, according to the five MEPs, lies also in ·the denial that people are equal” and the ·appeal for discrimination” against vast groups of Bulgarian society. In other words, the five MPs fear for the future of the values of the Bulgarian state, and are worried that there is a process of destruction of the liberal basis of modern democracy in Bulgaria.

What can be done against the erosion? Could the way be the condemnation of the notion that Ataka are ·bad because they threaten Bulgaria’s EU accession”? No. The five MEPs propose that ·normal” Bulgarian politicians stop the concealment and call the disease by its real name. Politicians must say in public that they are not against their political opponent Ataka but against the views that make the existence of Ataka possible. The five MEPs are also worried about what has not been done in Bulgaria. A country that accepts the values of the European Union but does nothing so that these values will be accepted by young Bulgarians. The five MEPs suggest that our political elite starts dealing with the issue.

And finally, to apply our own laws by showing that hate speech is intolerable.

The declaration by the five has the goal of reminding the Bulgarian elite what must be done. It is a signal, a red light. If our politicians fail to see it now, they will have only themselves to blame later. But by then it will be too late...

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT WRITTEN DECLARATION Pursuant to Rule 116 of its Rules of Procedure

by MEP Els de Groen Greens/EFA group MEP Michael Cashman PES group MEP Erik Meijer GUE/NGL group MEP Alexander Graf Lambsdorff ALDE group MEP Geoffrey Van Orden EPP/ED group

Written declaration on protection of people in Bulgaria against neo-totalitarianism The European Parliament - Having regard to Rule 116 of its Rules of procedures; - Having regard to its numerous resolutions condemning fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, denial of the Holocaust and the resolution on the situation of Roma in Europe; A. Whereas it is expected that in 2007 Bulgaria will be a member state of the European Union; B. Whereas successive Bulgarian Governments have confirmed the democratic and tolerant nature of the political system; C. Whereas there are political forces functioning inside Bulgaria whose leaders preach hatred to minorities and especially to Jews, Roma and Turks, deny the Holocaust and call for returning to totalitarian methods of state governance; D. Whereas that propaganda presents a

considerable threat to many Bulgarian citizens because it promotes a denial of the equality of all human beings and the expulsion or discrimination of groups which they want to be their victims; 1. Calls on all democratic parties of Bulgaria to condemn such views and political methods and provide citizens with information related to the danger of new totalitarianism as well as to take measures for continuing education of youth in a spirit of tolerance and respect of democratic values and rights of minorities; 2. Invites the Bulgarian judiciary to enforce the measures provided in its national legislation to prevent hate speech, intolerance and discrimination; 3. Instructs the President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council, the Commission and the Governments of member states.

Signatures: MEP Els de Groen Greens/EFA group MEP Michael Cashman PES group MEP Erik Meijer GUE/NGL group MEP Alexander Graf Lambsdorff ALDE group MEP Geoffrey Van Orden EPP/ED group

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Why we are suing Volen Siderov Krassimir KANEV

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n February 2006, several dozen NGOs and private individuals filed a civil lawsuit in Sofia City Court against the leader of the Attack coalition Volen Siderov. The claim requests an almost symbolic sanction for incitement to discrimination and harassment of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities in Siderov’s TV programmes, publications and public statements. The claim was filed because these NGOs believe that the Judiciary in Bulgaria should take measures when: Someone who wants to rule the country declares an entire ethnic group - the Roma people to be criminals and dangerous to our security and welfare. That someone, through all kinds of primitive methods, repeatedly and constantly tries to stoke up Bulgarians against Roma.

Someone who wants to rule Bulgaria suggests that the Jews are plunderers and destroyers of Christians, and declares their trauma, the Holocaust, the best documented genocide in the history of mankind, a lie.

Someone who wants to rule Bulgaria calls the head of the Catholic Church a maniac and ·mentally ill statesman”, and his Curia - a rival to the Cosa Nostra.

The lawsuit makes no comments to Siderov’s criticisms of government policies and the exposure (true or not) of government corruption. On the contrary, among the NGO complainants there are quite a few who have during the past years critically evaluated the policies of all governments in a number of spheres of public life.

The decision to start legal action for speech was not an easy one for me and my organization, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, which in all these years has proven, in words and deeds, its devotion to and support for freedom of speech. A democratic society should always watch the balance between these two public interests. The interest of speech, which must find its way even when it is shocking or unpleasant to someone, and the interest of the ·others”, especially when they are socially vulnerable, to live in a society which honors their dignity and respects their way of life without abusing their pain. For these reasons, our decision to sue Siderov came after careful reading of the law and measuring these two public interests. We also considered the character and the extent of the legal sanction, which we want the court to de4 OBEKTIV

fine. That is why I am ready to defend our decision to anyone and in any kind of public forum.

However, I am not ready to accept the arguments of some liberal critics who interpret our decision in a political context. In the December 12, 2005 issue of the Dnevnik daily, Stefan Popov qualified it as ·free PR for an amateur in a popular musical”. In the Novinar daily of February 6, 2006 TV journalist Ivan Garelov condemned the ·infantile action” of the NGOs who had decided to sue Siderov because this would ·only contribute to his increased popularity”. To me, such arguments reveal a strange understanding of the concept of how, about whom and with what purpose the law in a state governed by the rule of law should be applied. For example, if Siderov breaks a Roma teenager’s nose, should the law be applied against him, even at the risk (quite realistic, by the way) of increasing his popularity? What if he decides to cut the teenager’s head off? When exactly must the law intervene? And what about the other people who have committed crimes and will be prosecuted because they do not have voters standing behind them?

In Bulgaria, if you label the Roma or the Jews criminals, use the media or the parliamentary forum to humiliate people on the grounds of their religion or sexual orientation, this is just as much a violation of the law as if you are involved in pedophilia. These crimes may be of different graveness, but there is no way that the law can turn a blind eye to an offense, even if the court’s decision is unpopular. Everyone must follow and obey the law notwithstanding the current political situation, and in a way commensurate to the fundamental principles of a state governed by the supremacy of the law.

The Anti-Discrimination Act, on the basis of which our lawsuit was filed, was adopted by parliament in 2004 ·in the name of the people”. It was highly praised by the European Commission. At the time of its adoption, some people said that it had been adopted ·for the sake of the European Union”, to pull the wool over the eyes of the Europeans, and that we would continue by the old ways, meaning by not applying it or by applying it selectively. I always shudder at such attitudes, because at their core they are an expression of our own self-humiliation and low self-esteem. And this is something that, I am convinced, we don’t deserve.

·Bulgareaucrats” to form a ·Guardia” movement A new ultra-nationalist political movement under the name of ·Guardia” will be formed in Bulgaria in March 2006. Guardia members will wear uniforms and their main goal will be to replace democracy with ·Bulgareaucracy”.

Forecasts that ultra-nationalism in Bulgaria is the coming political trend have been confirmed. The beginning of March will be the birth of the newest formation to fight against the ·de-Bulgarisation of the Fatherland” and will be a rival to Volen Siderov’s Attack party. The new political movement will be called Guardia and its most likely leader will be Boyan Rassate, head of the Bulgarian National Alliance (BNA).

There is a story behind the alias ·Rassate”. This is the pagan name of Vladimir, one of the sons of King Boris I, whom Boris had blinded as a punishment for Vladimir’s striving to overthrow Christianity and revive the pagan cult.

Behind the name of Boyan Boyanov, according to press reports, stands a student who failed to graduate from the New Bulgarian University and who was under investigation in 1999 and from 2002 is being tried for the beating a Romani man. According to Siderov’s personal reference for Boyanov, given in 2005 on the eve of the parliamentary elections when Ataka and the BNA were allies, Boyanov is ·a young man with a nationally responsible vision for society and the world, and a man who could never have an attitude against law and order in Bulgaria and its state institutions”. Patriotism was ·Rassate’s second nature. He has patriotic views about a prosperous Bulgaria,” Siderov also said in his reference.

In order to ascertain the accuracy of the statements made by the leader of Attack, we need only go back to September 2004 when the BNA organised a convention at the ·Pyasachnika” dam next to Starosel village, near Pazardzhik. Seventy men, both young and old, mainly from rural Bulgaria and abroad, took part in this ·National CampConvocation” and took several important, symbolic decisions. What were these decisions?

A course towards the foundation of a United Nationalistic Front against globalism, NATO, and the present model of the European Union, corruption among Bulgarian politicians and a renaissance of traditional Bulgarian values.

Protection of nationalists from repression.

Exposure of all false patriots who want to take part in the 2005 parliamentar elections.

Enhancing the contacts and position of the Bulgarian nationalists with foreign nationalist organizations, and - note carefully - spreading the idea not of national socialism, but of ·social nationalism”.

In this way, the Bulgarian National Alliance, established in 2001 as a ·patriotic non-political organization”, which was

only known until then with its petitions ·Who Will Pay for the Roma Electricity Bills?” and ·Let’s Clean Bulgaria Up”, turned candidate for the leadership of the nationalistic formations in the country.

However, what was more significant at the 2004 nationalist ·camp-convocation” was the list of international participants. According to Boyan Rassate, the BNA had the support of eight radical European formations: the German Deutsches Kolleg, the NPD (National Democratic Party) and Freier Widerstand (Free Resistance); the Belgian Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block); the Spanish La Falange (Falange) founded

by Franco the Dictator; the French Guarde Franque (Frankish Guard); the Romanian Noua Dreapta (New Right Wing); and the Dutch Nationale Alliantie (National Alliance). The total number of their active members, according to Rassate, exceeds 700,000. ·We came here to say that the BNA is the legitimate face of the European national resistance,” the special representative of Freier Widerstand, Matius Schultz, told the media at the time. He refused to be photographed because of fear of ·repression in his homeland”. Schultz, together with two other associates, was a ·delegate” at the BNA convocation in 2004. ·Like the traditional parties who are proud of their relations with European partners, we are also glad of having our contacts. The democrats are part of the European People’s Party, the socialists are members of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International, and we are members of the United Front for National Resistance”, explained Rassate before the Bulgarian Politika weekly.

Rassate added one more thing: ·We are glad that these people will know with whom to work in Bulgaria. They know our positions; we have attended their seminars and events.

Undoubtedly, in 10 years’ time, when our small Bulgaria will have three million Bulgarians and three million Gypsies, we will be the ones dictating to Europe what will happen”.

These are just some of the views of the new nationalistic guru with the ancient Bulgarian alias declared several years ago. Today, after the pathetic split of the BNA and Attack which is represented in parliament - Rassate’s supporters managed to mount the Bulgarian flag on the highest Bulgarian peak Mussala, and to get into a fight with Ataka MPs. BNA members also waved guns in front of Ataka’s headquarters and organised a torch lit march in commemoration of the death of General Hristo Lukov, head of the Bulgarian National Legion and devoted Nazi-supporter. At finally, the BNA organised a referendum, in which allegedly 20,000 people took part, in which the BNA prepared the world for their new formation, Guardia.

Georgi Papakochev Deutsche Welle OBEKTIV 5

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB

CAN FINES STOP THE LANGUAGE OF HATE? The expression ·hate speech” has its origins in journalism, not law. But things do not change because of the labels we use for them. Everyone knows what the term means. According to the legal definition, hate speech is everything that incites hatred on the basis of religious or ethnic differences. This hate speech is punishable by law, or at least on paper, is punishable.

In the past few months, hate speech has been heard increasingly frequently on the air in Bulgaria, and seen in some of the print media. In this first year after the June 2005 parliamentary elections, such language found fertile soil among readers, viewers, and radio listeners - or, simply put, among voters.

In this way, the Ataka coalition, which took the name of a TV programme, won a place in parliament.

During the 2003 municipal elections, the TV programme ·From Telephone to Microphone”, which had a format similar to the one now used by Ataka, was sanctioned by the Electronic Media Council (EMC). Later, the Den television station, which broadcast the programme, was taken off the air for some time. This set a precedent that prompted intense discussion in media circles in Bulgaria.

Today we are faced with a much more serious case. The SKAT television station has become the electronic media outlet of Ataka, and a symbol of hatred. In a provocative way, and on an almost daily basis, some of SKAT’s programmes use the language of intolerance and hatred. Such language has started to appear in some of the press, which is meant to regulate itself through adherence to the Code of Ethics of Bulgarian Journalism. Unfortunately, not all mainstream media editorsin-chief signed the code.

In the summer of 2005, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, along with other organizations, requested the EMC to monitor several of SKAT’s programmes - ·Ataka”, ·Between the Lines” and ·All Bulgarians Together”, for systematic incitement to hatred and intolerance.

What was the result of this monitoring? Can the EMC administrative tools stop this hate speech on the air? Do MPs have immunity against such language? What other means besides sanctions should be used? What about the press, which is not regulated by anyone? In general, does freedom of speech have limits in a democratic society and if so, where does it lie?

We invited EMC chairperson Raycho Raykov, Ataka deputy floor leader Pavel Chernev, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee chairperson Krassimir Kanev and journalist Yasen Boyadziev, chairperson of the ·Free Speech” Forum and member of the Board of the Bulgarian Media Coalition, to answer these questions.

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OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB

Raycho Raykov, EMC chairman

In the past two years SKAT has been penalized four times. Two fines were confirmed by court. Following a request by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee in accordance with the Access to Information Act, the EMC has decided to make those two penalties public. Currently, a further two penalties are pending further developments.

We cannot interfere with the programme plans of the various media. The only thing that the EMC can do is issue the compulsory rules on the parameters of programmes that have been licensed. I could make a distinction. One issue is the language used by politicians. Could politicians swear in Parliament? Should this be shown on air if it is a violation of public morals? We took a clause from the European Convention on Transborder Television, according to which gory scenes should not be allowed on programmes, especially in

WHAT THE SKAT TV MONITORING REVEALED ·The EMC has four functions defined by law - to license, to register, to monitor, and to sanction. The EMC has to monitor all public and commercial broadcasters to monitor their compliance with articles 14, 17 and 19 of the law - regarding copyright.

My colleagues and I believe that none of the TV stations, including the SKAT television, should be publicly condemned. Just recently, we sanctioned the Bulgarian National Radio for hate speech in a music programme. A famous radio presenter had said that famous Roma singer Sofi Marinova should sing in a Roma Eurovision Contest, not in the European one. Our administrative sanction later became a punishment in terms of the Penal Code.

Other television stations have committed similar breaches, and the EMC has sanctioned them. When we talk about SKAT we must not refer only to Ataka.

There was monitoring during the entire pre-election period between May 25 until late June 2005. Our analysis revealed that SKAT had no more than three TV programmes that were sanctionable. The programme with the biggest role in spreading political intolerance was ·Uncompromising” hosted by Georgi Zhekov.

The Radio and Television Act talks about ·programmes that spread racial, ethnic, political, and religious hostility”. Hate speech on such programmes is a violation of article 17, which says that ·radio and TV broadcasters should not allow the broadcasting of programmes which violate article 10, and programmes, which incite national, political, ethnic, religious, and racial intolerance or praise cruelty and violence or are aimed at damaging the physical, mental and moral state of minors.”

Article 10 sets out the nine principles about how radio and TV broadcasters should operate are listed. Section 5, paragraph 1 of the article says ·non-admission of programmes inspiring intolerance among citizens”.

Continued on page 9

Pavel Chernev, deputy floor leader of the Ataka coalition THERE IS A DOUBLE STANDARD In my car the other day, I was listening to a youth radio show about an African-American singer who had failed to get pregnant. One of radio presenters said, ·Oh, well, one black baby less. It’s not like anybody is going to miss it!”. I don’t see that young man in the reports by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.

I can give some other examples. I read in the Sedem newspaper a ·lovely” story condemning my stay at the religious school in the village of Ustino. I was described as a half-blind, half-literate individual, while the policy of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms to spread Islam in the Rhodope mountains continues. This policy means that when the time comes, the Bulgarian Orthodox will be confronted with Muslim clerics who will start converting Muslim villages to Islamic extremism. I do not see the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee taking a position on such articles and comments.

Continued on page 10 OBEKTIV 7

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB illegal. This is why hate speech is unique. It differs from any other actions banned by law. For example, incitement to murder is illegal as is murder itself.

For other historical, political and cultural reasons, such language has a destructive effect on the groups it targets. Regarding double standards: hate speech is in the balance between two public interests. On one hand, the interests of the target group (ethnic, religious etc), whose identity and integrity must be protected. On the other hand, we have the right of every person to exercise freedom of speech. This is why a balance must be found. This is the starting point when we have to analyze the standard regarding condemnation of hate speech.

Krassimir Kanev, chair of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

In Western Europe people go to prison for this THE SANCTIONS DEPEND ON THE DANGER

Hate speech is a term widely accepted in legal and other literature. When we talk about hate speech, we must understand that it is subject to different limits for different groups within society (politicians, people with different religions, sexuality, etc).

International law, and to some extent Bulgarian law, deals mainly with language that leads to hatred and discrimination on the basis of ethnic and religious differences, rather than political differences. This is normal. When we do not like a politician for his views, he can change them (or not), but when we condemn someone because he is a Roma he cannot just go and change the color of his skin or religion. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee has never protested the fact that someone has condemned a political party or group. In this case, a person can express his right of freedom of speech completely lawfully.

It is incitement to hatred that is punished, not the hatred itself.

As for the idea that hate speech should be banned, I am glad that we have a consensus that it must be limited and banned. International law is clear on this question. Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says that any inspiration of national or racial hatred that leads to discrimination should be banned by law.

Both Bulgarian and international law have chosen the method of banning incitement towards certain behavior. It is not illegal to hate someone, but it is illegal to make other people hate someone. This is the only case when the process of making someone do something is illegal when the act itself is not 8 OBEKTIV

If four people sit down in a pub and start joking about and swearing at Roma or Jews, this is not an act of such public interest that it would lead to legal action against them. However it is the context of their speech that matters, because the context is what defines the public interest. It is one thing to say something in a pub; another thing to say it on TV or in parliament. This is how we define the public effect and the danger of such language.

Continued on page 11

Yasen Bojadziev, chairperson of the ¡Free Speech� Forum and a member of the Board of the Bulgarian Media Coalition FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS THE SEEKING OF BALANCE We say that something cannot be that bad if many people do it, or in this case, more than 300,000 people chose to vote for it. I think, however, that the main problem is that in the past few years, this form of expression has become widely accepted by the public. I am also against double standards, and think that such behavior should not be underestimated. This behavior has

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB reached its apostheosis, and is very dangerous today because the ·language used at home” has received public recognition in the past year in Bulgaria. You can hear it even in parliament.

The Radio and Television Act cannot deal with this. It is obvious that the sanctions imposed on SKAT by the EMC are inefficient. The pecuniary fine is not so important. The public must be shown that this kind of language is illegal, and that it violates not only Bulgarian law, and that it is punishable.

Sanctions are not enough because this kind of language has spread to an enormous extent, and has found a suitable environment. The common notion that Bulgarians are tolerant sounds strange today. The same applies to the idea that Bulgarians are very hard-working people.

People with complexes come up with such excuses for their lifestyle and behavior. I am not even going to remind you that in many languages, there is no equivalent of the Bulgarian word trudolyubie [love of work].

I think that sanctions will not solve the problem. We need to talk about it in order to solve it. The EMC, for that matter, organizes various forums. We, on the other hand, together with all the media and every citizen, must declare that such language - the spreading of lies, and populist responses to real problems - is dangerous to the whole society.

Media self-regulation is part of the solution to this eternal struggle. We must bear in mind that there is no permanent solution to the problem.

The institutional section of the Code of Ethics will soon be completed. We have selected two committees and they will soon start working so that every one will be able to file a complaint. Discussion of this issue will be part of the work of the committees.

The problem is that most of the media follow the code and will go on following it, but there are some Bulgarian media which still refuse to sign it and have no intention of following it. Such media include SKAT TV. Daily newspaper Monitor is not part of this mechanism and will not sign the code because of the differences that its publisher has with other publishers.

What is the real threat within the statement made by Volen Siderov during his election campaign that sooner or later the question of the Roma population had to be solved and that every Roma must be sent to where he belonged - without naming that place? The place had not been specified, but mental associations suggest what Siderov had in mind. In Bulgaria there is such thing as an Anti-Discrimination Act. It uses definitions such as ·harassment and incitement towards discrimination”. We all condemn violence, but to say that a group of people is terrorists is not the right thing to do. However we must not focus solely on this position. I think that civil society must exist as well. Such language is dangerous to the people who use it as well as for those who are its targets. Freedom of speech cannot be measured from point A to point B. Its boundaries cannot be defined that easily. Every case must be reviewed on its own merits.

Raycho Raykov: Den TV set the trend for intolerance Continued from page 7 news broadcasts. In our recommendation we took a text verbatim from the Code of Ethics of Bulgarian Media. ·Hate speech is definitely a form of violating public morals.”

In exchanges between the opposition and the ruling coalition, we find no words of love. Just hate.

They go so far as to call each other ·homosexuals”.

Would you call this love? The term ·hate speech” is a journalistic invention. Just take a look at the papers!

Some of them only want to inspire hatred, and I’m not talking about the yellow press. In my view, the media’s self-regulatory mechanism envisaged in the Code of Ethics isn’t working.

Articles 162 and 164 of the Penal Code provide that anyone who uses the mass media to incite racial hatred may be imprisoned for up to three years.

When Nick Stein was speaking nonsense on Den TV station and we blew the whistle that in Bulgaria his show was spreading hatred against Roma and communists, everyone turned against us. Den TV was not stopped at all. It continued to broadcast the song Let It Be, violating the Copyright Act. Den stopped broadcasting after the station lost all its money.

There are attempts by some TV stations to talk about the good news, but this very same Nick Stein now has his own TV show on BKTV station.

So where are the limits to freedom of speech, and aren’t they too vague? A freedom is a freedom as long as it follows the law.

The law gives freedom to act and the freedom to accept responsibility. No other European language has two words for freedom, as Bulgarian does. One means freedom and the other means excessive freedom. Our problem as a nation is that we hate each other too much.

For the time being, the only thing that the EMC can do is to issue administrative sanctions. These sanctions are carried out in such a way that they do not take the form of repressive measures. For example, the chairperson of the Turkish media regulator has the right to stop any programme that violates the law for a certain period of time. This is how the system works in other European countries as well. In Romania, the license of one of the national broadcasters was withdrawn on the grounds of inciting ethnic intolerance. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want more power for the EMC. We rely on the impact of the administrative sanctions such as fines, dialogue with NGOs and most of all on the reflex of self-regulation.

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OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB Pavel Chernev: Group rights cannot be justified Continued from page 7 This is why I want to express my disagreement with the double standard used in the case of the Ataka programme, the most popular programme broadcast on SKAT TV, and all other kinds of TV and radio shows, articles and comments that go unsanctioned.

You must seek out hate speech everywhere where it exists. Do not do this deliberately.

As for the monitoring, there are criminal measures and a certain legal procedure. It is obvious that messages that spread religious and ethnic intolerance cannot be stopped from being broadcast. It would be wrong, however, to think that this is something related only to the Ataka programme. If you look carefully in the press and in what has been broadcast, you will see serious ethnic intolerance there.

Unfortunately, I see a double standard. We of the Ataka coalition do not want to confront anyone on a religious or ethnic basis, but we do want to see that the law is the same for everyone. We think that individual rights and obligations are the core of the social contract.

There is no such thing as group rights and group rights cannot be justified or compared to any other group rights when it comes to the human rights that are the foundations and achievements of our civilization. ·Hate speech” should not be allowed to be broadcast uncontrolled. Such language, however, should not be identified only for political reasons as is the case with the Ataka programme on SKAT TV. You mentioned that in the Western world people go to prison for even more minor offenses. If the 300,000 people who support the Ataka coalition should be sanctioned, what would the size of the prison be then?

As political activist for the Ataka coalition, I can speak about hate speech because I have been called a fascist. Of course I disagree with this description, because I have never been one, but you do not see this as hate speech, do you? The use of such insulting descriptions, such as ·fascist”, which implicates a criminal effect, since fascism is criminalized worldwide - has become commonplace these days. Whether I am called ·a criminal against humanity” or a ·pedophile murderer” is equally offensive to me, because I am neither of those things. But what is the sanction against the hate speech in these cases?

It makes me think of someone who talks about God but inside is thinking about the Devil. I heard no debate when in the Roma neighborhood of Stolipinovo in Plovdiv a 13-year-old Bulgarian girl was 10 OBEKTIV

murdered. I did not see your worried faces then. I did not see your worried faces when, in the case of the Mechka village, where people were terrorized by criminals every day, where there were numerous unsolved crimes, and the Interior Ministry had to use force so that order would be established. The same applies to the Roma clan of Zrunkovi.

I will be the first to put down the sword if I see you condemning these acts of hatred.

Until you do so, I will continue to claim that there is a double standard.

As regards the fact that the Bulgarian fascists used to issue a newspaper called Ataka, I can say that I learned about it after last year’s elections. That is also the name of some French anti-globalists, and to accuse anti-globalists of fascism would be awkward.

There might be some similarities. At some of our rallies, there were young people who wore military uniforms, who were marching, singing songs and holding edelweiss. It was a positive step for Ataka when it decided to get rid of such extremists. There were major fights between us, the real patriots from Ataka, and them. In the end we won, and they were asked to do such things somewhere else, not among Ataka. I read in the press that they were forming their own party that will revise Ataka.

We had to fight to clean our party of these people, who are radicals with evil intentions. Such radicals are the people marching ahead with Rassate. Many of our real supporters wore their ordinary clothes to our rallies, but this does not mean that they were less patriotic than Rassate’s people. Unfortunately the damage was done and now we have to work harder to escape the bad image that has been given us by Rassate. It was never our intention, Volen Siderov’s and mine, to bring evil and harm into politics.

Rassate harshly criticized me when I refused to condemn the ethnic Turks at a gathering of a hundred people. I said only that the majority of the Turks in Bulgaria are actually Bulgarians who were converted to Islam several centuries ago, and I did not want to break the head of ·Uncle Hassan” who grows tobacco. That enraged my fellow party member Rassate.

There was a critical turning point for Ataka. Some controversial people though that Ataka was an extremist party and wanted to join us. However, Ataka managed to find its own identity through attracting members and followers who will work within the framework of the Constitution and Bulgaria’s laws.

People who want to change the established public order in Bulgaria are not welcome in Ataka.

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB Krassimir Kanev: For words like these in a Western democracy, people would have been sent to prison Continued from page 8 The sanction must be harsher for a politician who, in parliament or on TV says that, for example, Roma are people who commit rape, theft, murder and terrorize ordinary citizens, or if the politician claims that the Jews are stealing the world’s riches and that the Holocaust is a lie. Here we see the role and the stronger responsibility and commitment of public debate. This is why the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee is interested mainly in the messages coming from politicians.

I was against the sanction against Den TV by the EMC, and said so publicly. Today we have a different situation, which demands a different approach.

Back then, the sanction against Den TV was given on the basis of a relatively marginal programme that had a public effect that was actually insignificant. I ask you, how many people in Bulgaria knew about the programme ·From Telephone to Microphone”? It had no political or public effect. I think when sanctions are imposed, the effect of the language used must be estimated because this is very important in considering the extent of the sanction.

Do MPs have immunity for inciting intolerance?

At present we have a political party which, using this language of hate, won seats in parliament, and created a public atmosphere whose embryo is in the SKAT TV. This is why this station deserves a more severe sanction today than the sanction against Den some years ago. Other forms of regulation are an important part of the law, but cannot replace the law itself when it comes to sanctions.

We must not accept that if a certain way of speaking has its followers, this means that it has legal immunity.

I oppose criminal persecution of politicians. Hitler re-

ceived much more than 300,000 votes. Does this make him less of a criminal?

An action which by its nature is against the law, yet has supporters in society, still continues to be against the law.

Isn’t the boundary to freedom of speech too easy to move?

The things that we hear on SKAT are severely sanctioned in Western Europe, and people even go to prison for this. There are many cases of this. For example, on February 20 this year the trial of an English historian arrested in Austria was scheduled to start. His crime was that in his books he had denied the Holocaust. And this is a case where he had not used television or any other public forum to express his ideas.

If we look at what Volen Siderov has written in his two books The Boomerang of Evil and The Power of Mammon, we will see that the Catholic Church can only be compared to the Cosa Nostra. We see the same in Georgi Ifandiev’s books, who also hosts a TV show on SKAT. This is incitement towards religious hatred and discrimination. And we are not even talking about how these two authors describe other ethnic or religious communities. The limit to freedom of speech is the law and the effective execution of the law itself. There should be no difference in the way the law prosecutes a murder or hate speech in the media. The law should deal with SKAT TV and all other media that spread such hostile language in the same way that it deals with theft, robbery or murder.

OBEKTIV 11

Pastrogor “madness” and misery Slavka KUKOVA

Is the ·reform” in the social care homes effective?

T

he road to Pastrogor village, Svilengrad municipality location of a home for women with mental disorders, is so bad that we are not sure if our car will make it. It is March 2, 2006, 11 am. An iron table and four chairs are fixed in front of the home’s entrance. They were probably meant for visits - we don’t know. On the other side of the fence, we see close to 20 women wandering purposelessly around the yard. Ragged, dirty and abandoned. Three of them come to welcome us, and most of all, to ask for a cigarette or 20 stotinki for coffee.

The fuss attracts the nurses, who say that the home director is away, and they have to ask him for permission to let us in. The women remain with us and explain that they had been ill-treated (sometimes by the director) and that they do not like the medicines they get and the home in general.

After a phone call to the director, we are allowed in.

The women insist on contacting their relatives to see if they can come to take them away from the home. They follow us with this request for some time. They say that they are not allowed to phone their relatives. And this is happening during this grand ·re-integration” initiative.

We enter the offices of the young and pleasant employees - we find out later that they are social workers.

They give us martenitsi - traditional Bulgarian white-and-

12 OBEKTIV

red thread decorations marking springtime - from a cupboard, claiming that they were made by the women as a form of therapy. Later we did not meet a single woman who had made such a martenitsa. The director Georgi Georgiev arrives in a hurry soon after our arrival. He invites us into his half-empty office. He says that they use it for therapy sessions once in a while. From the first part of the exchange, we understand that he has been the director for many years and after a break of two years, he had returned to the post. He did not know what happened at the home while he was away. The home has been inspected by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy but no recommendations were issued.

We ask him whether there had been any changes since 2003 when the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee recorded the extremely miserable living conditions at the home. The home accommodates 86 women with various mental illnesses and/or developmental disabilities. The home is a former army barracks with falling plaster and heating on woods or coals, baths without showers and only one outside toilet with four cubicles for all the women.

From that 2003 visit we know that a new building had been built in the yard in 1992, but it is still unfinished and it is not used for the purposes of the home. The director explains that the view we are about to see is not very

pleasant. He says that he has heard from the local press that the Social Investment Fund will at last allocate the 360,000 leva [180,000 Eur] necessary to complete the new building in 2006. However, he adds that he had not received official confirmation of this. They managed to repair some of the rooms but this did not change the general situation.

The social worker brings books and records. She shows us programmes for integration and occupational therapy of the women - cleaning, watching TV, and helping with housework are the main activities mentioned in it. We see that according to the programme, the women are taken to see a movie or a folk concert every month and to celebrate their birthdays.

Now we understand why all the women at the entrance were saying that it was their birthday. That is the only time when they receive presents. We ask how many of the 86 women take part in these events. They say about 30, the not-so-complicated cases. We look at the accounting books. Close to 40 women receive pensions of 117 leva [58 Eur] and 80 per cent of the pension goes to the home. The rest of the women receive pensions ranging from 66 to 72 leva [33-36 Eur]. In this way, in the coldest winter month, January, the home managed to cover its expenses for heating, electricity, food, and cleaning materials solely from the residents’ fees. The state gives a mere 500 leva [250 Eur] extra and the staff salaries. We go out of the administration of the home and enter another world.

Dark and smoky rooms, with women lying around, and who, the minute they see us, start making requests to leave the home. They ask us why they are at the home. Some do not even try to escape the trap that their relatives and social institutions had set for them. In each of the two buildings, there are five rooms with up to seven beds each. We go through the corridors, just washed with water but still covered with dust and faeces.

In one of the rooms, there is no means of heating, but still two women are lying there. The nurse tells us that the room is not usually used, and that is why it is not heated.

Around me there are women of various ages, with ragged clothes and mismatched shoes, worried eyes and shaking hands. They follow us and beg us to take them back to ·civilization”. They beg. I ask if they know about their pensions and that they had money. They answer that even if they knew, it would be of no use because whatever they buy will be stolen. I ask them if they use the new cupboards bought after the ·changes” and they show me that they are empty. The women carry everything under their shirts or in bags attached to them.

The ones that are bedridden, about 40, are in serious condition. The beds are up against each another. The only place where you can stay is by the stove. I ask who put firewood in the stove and when, and receive no answer. It is cold. I see half-naked women sitting still and uncaring in their beds. I put a martenitsa in their hands and they do not want to let go. ·You are so warm,” one of them tells me. She is dressed only in a man’s shirt, unbuttoned, and wears no underwear. She must weigh

about 30 kg. Those who accompany me say that these were the ·fattest” women.

Some complain that the orderlies beat them when they bath them or when they do not want to out certain clothes on that aren’t theirs or they don’t like. The orderlies that are standing next me do not even try to oppose these claims. The women ask the director and the staff when they are going to let them out.

We see that unlike any other director of such a facility, this one does not communicate with the patients, just blushes and turns his head the other way, explaining to us how bad the situation is.

We cannot understand why women with serious mental illnesses, who have spent their entire lives in institutions, are living together in the same room with 30year-old women who have been recently institutionalised, with fresh memories from the outside world. My first reaction, I hope you’ll pardon me, was ·madness”, but those who are allegedly mad are not the real mad people here.

Yordanka from Saedinenie wants me to assure her that she will leave the home after she is cured. The staff had told her that someone had to come and pick her up. They referred to this someone as a ·guardian”.

Yordanka, however, says that she did not have one and the only relatives she had left were her brother and sister-in-law, but they would not come to get her. It turns out that she is not legally incapacitated, she has no guardian, and that she signed the admission documents herself, not knowing what kind of a home she would be going to. When she finds out that she could leave any moment, she jumps out of the bed and starts packing.

She wants a loan, money for the ticket.

The director tells us listlessly that he had understood that the municipality had taken 90,000 leva [45,000 Eur] from the home’s allowance for 2004 for itself.

During that time we see beds with dirty and torn mattresses, some with only one dirty sheet and some without sheets at all, usually the beds of the serious cases.

The blankets are dirty and only one to a bed. In the most remote rooms we find around 10 half-naked and barefoot women. While we are in their room not one of the staff cares to give them something to wear. They do not speak and use only two gestures, to ask for a cigarette and to show that they want to go. The toilets are blocked with faeces. Other rooms do not exist. Nor does occupational therapy.

Frankly speaking, I did not expect to see this five years after the international campaign at the home in Sanadinovo. Here we cannot even talk about a lack of money. Even a foreigner can understand that. Only one thought stays with me - absolute negligence and ignorance and criminal negligence. And still no one is guilty because the chain of responsibility again goes in a vague direction. Unfortunately the home in Pastrogor will be just one more place that I will remember with deep sorrow. At least until (if ever) Emilia Maslarova, Minister of Labour and Social Policy, responds to our alarm signal with urgent measures.

OBEKTIV 13

After last summer’s floods, the people in Velingrad want land for new buildings, not caravans

The Roma are living on top of an old graveyard, they organised human chains to stop funeral processions Hristo HRISTOV

T

he reason that I decided to visit Velingrad was the concern among local Roma activists caused by the negligence of the institutions to the problems of 18 Roma families left homeless after last the floods last August.

Roman Chilev, whom the locals call the Good Teacher, welcomed me. Emil Gaitanov, the local Roma leader, also joined us.

The Anezitsa Romani neighbourhood in Velingrad is located at the end of the town’s Chepino district. The houses are spread out on the surrounding hills and looked quite picturesque from a distance. The picture is very different at close range.

WE REACHED ANEZITSA AND THE ASPHALT ROAD ENDED

The rain kept pouring, and Chilev offered me a pair of rubber boots, which I found useful. Plucking up courage, I stepped into the mud. The only dirt road that goes to the centre of Anezitsa is covered with garbage and manure on one side, and on the other, rocks and mud from the landslides have not been cleared away. The water runs in from every direction, past the houses, gathers the garbage and pours into the only road, which we are using.

When 35 years ago this land was given to the Roma 14 OBEKTIV

for their houses in Anezitsa, the measurements were in footsteps, not in square meters. Back then, however, there were few Roma families, much fewer than today.

Now there are 1,700 people and the number increases every year. There is no room for new houses. Who would have thought this would be a problem one day?

We reach the caravans. White, clean and shiny. Four of them are placed on the right side of the road and two of them have been moved by a large mass of mud, stones and a huge piece of rock fallen from the bank.

On the other side, is the ground with another 14 caravans. It resembles a war scene.

Children play without suspecting any danger. People gathered rapidly and started sharing their problems.

Assen Nikolov is 40 years old and his wife Liliana - 35. They have seven children. Two of their sons are married. The oldest, Manol, 19, lives independently in a one-room caravan with his wife and child. The other one, seventeen-year-old Ivan and his pregnant wife are living together with his parents and five siblings. ·I had a nice little house, the whole neighbourhood knows it. Furnished, solidly built with bricks and rocks, nicely plastered. It had three bedrooms and a living room. The whole family lived there. Only I know what it cost me to built it. We managed to live in it for only two years and a few months. The water took it away. They gave us 1,000 leva [500 euro] and we bought beds, a wardrobe, a Continued on page 16

Velingrad mayor Stoyan Dulev:

There is no other spot for temporary homes The Roma representative proposed to mayor Dulev to set up a public council on ethnic issues, to draft a working strategy on minority issues. Dulev promised to put this to a vote in the municipal council and to create a position for a Roma expert in his administration.

-Mr. Mayor, the people are concerned that with the melting of the snow there is a danger of new floods. What will happen to them?

- There is no other place to put the caravans, or where we can give the Roma people land for new houses. On the territory of Velingrad we have eight municipal plots of land. The only available place is on the hill at Anezitsa. This site alone is suitable for the caravans, or else we would have had to destroy more houses than the number of the caravans. The electricity supply and electrometers are provided at our expense. The people need only to pay every month for what they have used. The entire Anezitsa neighbor-

hood has no sewers and right now we are applying for approval for a project worth 400,000 Eur for Anezitsa. We are still waiting for a reply from the Ministry of Disaster Management Policy for a project to build a new support wall. We are in the process of preparing projects for Euro funds in 2007 under the programme for environmental protection. We want to built riverbanks and walls where we had landslides.

- Is it true that the 82,000 leva allocated for Anezitsa sewers is missing?

- I don’t know, I was not mayor at that time.

- Are the promised 35 houses going to be built?

- The houses were supposed to be donated by the Bulgarian Red Cross. All they wanted from us was the land.

- How do you plan to work with the Roma people since there isn’t a single Roma representative working in the administration?

- We do not have the budget for that. We will have to dismiss someone instead.

Alexander Filipov, Deputy Minister for Disaster Management Policy:

·I am shocked” - Do you think it is ethical and moral to let people live on top of a graveyard, with no toilets and running water?

- Many Roma neighborhoods in the country do not have sewage and running water. But to hear that people are living in a graveyard is shocking. It is severe a violation, not only of moral and ethical norms, but also blasphemy and desecration of a holy place. It is not acceptable for such things to happen today. The guilt must be ascribed to those people and institutions responsible for the territory on which the Roma people live.

- Will the little bridge over the river be replaced with something more stable? There is a great danger that it will collapse, and the children use it to go to school.

- I want to make it clear that the Permanent Committee on Disasters is not part of our Ministry, but part of the State Agency for Civil Protection.

Many mayors say ‘We don’t receive money’. In fact they do, but do not deal with the problems of the Roma people. The Roma people are just as much citizens of Bulgaria and the mayors should not neglect their problems.

- Have you heard about the missing 82,000 leva which had been allocated for sewage in the Roma neighborhood in Velingrad?

- If a complaint has been filed, then it should be in Minister Emel Etem’s office. I am not trying to avoid responsibility, but my field of work is legislation and as regards anything else, you should ask Minister Etem and the permanent committee. If I have to comment on this case I must know if there is such a funded project, who is the executor and whether nothing has been done to inform the committee. The committee supervises and controls these things. In our draft bill these functions will go to the district governors because they know the problems of their regions and would know how to solve them.

- Are the promised 35 houses going to be built?

- I cannot answer. I was appointed on November 15, 2005 and by that date all such processes had been completed.

- Do you think that there should be a Roma expert in the municipality?

- Yes, because he will be the link between the institutions and the Roma people. Otherwise this community will live in complete darkness and will not know what is happening in the state and what rights it has. Today if they have a problem they do not have anyone to turn to. I think that the lack of such an expert is a minus for Velingrad municipality.

OBEKTIV 15

Continued from page 14 table and chairs. We are living in two rooms now. My wife and I and the five kids sleep in one of the rooms, the other is for my son and his pregnant wife.

We’ve suffered a great deal of misery this year, we lived almost like dogs. It is very cold in the caravans. If there’s no wood in the stove, everything freezes. The heat, on the other hand, makes curves in the plastic surfaces of the caravan walls. Last month they turned on the electricity supply. Before that we had to use candles. Now we collect metal, which we take to scrap yards so that we can make some money. Look at how our children go to school, with torn shoes and clothes.

We are forced to send them like that because otherwise they won’t give us welfare. It would have been better if they just had given us construction materials to built new houses”.

THE LITTLE GIRL IS EMBARRASSED AND HER HEAD BOWS. SHE HOLDS HER DOLL AND LOOKS AT ME SHYLY. Tsvetan Nikolov, 28, and Verka Slavcheva, 24, have no children. They used to live in a three-room house. When the water damaged it, they received the sum of 537 leva [app.

270 euro]. Now they are living in a one-room caravan. ·They promised us land, construction materials, but instead they gave us these caravans. They said that the one we are living in is worth 3,500 leva [1,750 euro]. Do you know what they did? A platform over the graveyard. We are living on top of graves. They just covered them with some earth.

Leveled it a bit, and now we are living on top of them. This is why they do not allow us to built toilets. How are we supposed to live like this? We have been in this caravan for three months now, and before that, together with 18 other families, had to welcome the first snow on the meadow in nylon tents.

Some women even gave birth in those tents because the doctors did not want to examine them. A pregnant girl was not admitted to a hospital because she had no money to pay. In the end we collected some money so that she could give birth in the hospital. At night our women do not go outside. They just use a bucket in the caravan, it is inhuman.

There are just afraid to go out at night... The children also are afraid of going out at night, during the day look at where they play... Watch out that you don’t step on something! I told you that there is no toilet”.

Ignat Kolev, 51, and Slavka Nikolova, 53, have five children. They used to live in a three-room house next to the river.

After the floods destroyed it, they received 774 leva [app. 390 euro]. ·When on August 5 they gave us the three tents, there was not enough room for all the families and I had to make a shed from derbies so that my family could have shelter.

We had to live like that with the little children during the cold until November 25. It was until yesterday (March 10) when they finally sent a lorry with firewood. We are supposed to receive three cubic metres of wood but they missed five families.

We saw on TV that in other places, people received bricks, cement and timber to build houses, and we are stuck here so that they can say that something was done.”

Sofka and Zheko Zafirovi are both 33 and have two children. ·Last week Mr. Nikolov (a technician at the municipality) came and told us that we could live in the caravans for 20

16 OBEKTIV

to 30 years. We do not agree with that. I have a 15-year-old son and tomorrow he will want to get married. Where should I put him? What about our youngest child? Do you know how cold it gets in the caravans? I have seen ice underneath the caravan more than 20 cm thick. It is wet all over the place. We bought new furniture with the money they gave us but it all got moldy. There was a time when the carpet was so frozen that I could not remove it from the floor. It was soaking wet. I do not want to spend another winter in that caravan. They are meant to be heated with electricity, not with stoves as we do. They warned us that if there is damage we would have to pay for it”.

Rositsa, 50, and Boris, 47, Terekievi had a three-room furnished house. Now they are living together with their grandchild in a one-room caravan. They have a double bed inside, a wardrobe, a cupboard, a table, a stove and a free space of around 50 cm, good enough for a spin. You can see that the furniture is new. In fact all caravans I entered had new furniture. The people obviously did not spend the money in the pub. Rositsa is ill and was laying on the bed. She complains of a nervous disorder.

After what I have seen in the caravans I stayed to discuss it with Roman Chilev, Emil and Assen. This is how Emil’s idea was born: We need a Romani representative at the municipality.

We want to get over the problems, we need a Roma expert on ethnic and demographic issues. This man could be the link between the Roma community and the municipality.

We are ready to help but there is no one to lobby for us and to raise issues openly and seriously. We only have a municipal counsellor and he hasn’t been of much help.”

I found Stefen Assenov, the municipal counsellor of the Roma Party, to ask him what has changed since our last meeting last year. He told me that 82,000 leva [41,000 Eur] meant for sewers in the Roma neighborhood had disappeared. The money went on something else. The money was received at the end of the term of the former mayor and some say that they were spent for election campaigning. ·We sent a letter to the Ministry for Disaster Management Policy about this and they just told us to inform the Prosecutors’ Office and the tax authorities. An investigation is going on right now,” Assenov said. He added that a new proposal for a water supply network and sewers in the Roma neighborhood had been sent to the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works. The project would cost 400,000 Eur, but there was still no reply. ·The old graveyard in the Chepino neighborhood in Velingrad was turned into a children’s playground after the municipality decided to put the caravans for the Roma there.

Now 60 people are living in 18 caravans on top of a cemetery,” says Emil Gaytanov. ·During the day our children play among the graves and during the night are scared to go out. Several times, we have asked the mayors to stop the funerals here. Eight years ago the municipal council decided all funerals would be in the central cemeteries. Some people continued to come here but we formed a human chain and they turned back. Until recently relatives of the buried were coming to take the bones and to bury them somewhere else.

We could not eat. Especially in the summer the smell from fallen graves is unbearable”.

The Interior Ministry Act contradicts international treaties Yonko GROZEV

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he right to life and prohibition of inhuman treatment are guaranteed in a number of international treaties to which Bulgaria is a party. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights both guarantee the right to life. The standards for protection of these rights are directly applicable with respect to use of firearms by law enforcement officials or other state officials who can carry firearms.

The first obligation of each country that is a party to these treaties is to adopt national legislation guaranteeing these rights. States parties are not obliged to accept literally the texts of the international treaties, but must adopt legislation that grants the same degree of protection.

As for the use of firearms, which can affect the right to life and the prohibition of inhuman treatment, the Bulgarian state has failed to fulfill even its basic obligation to bring domestic legislation in line with international law.

The use of firearms in Bulgarian legislation is regulated by the Interior Ministry Act in regard to police officers, and the regulations of the Penal Code. Most important is the text of article 80 of the Interior Ministry Act, which provides the possibility for use of firearms by law enforcement officials as a ·last resort” in several situations: ·armed attack or threat with a firearm”, ·during the release of hostages or kidnapped individuals” and in ·inevitable self-defense”. The law enforcement officials, however, are obliged to protect the life of the individual against whom they are using firearms, and the life of others. Although there might have been a more strict definition than that, these regulations in Bulgarian legislation are not themselves a problem.

The serious discrepancy between the domestic legislation and the international law arises from the last two hypotheses of article 80, paragraph 1 of the Interior Ministry Act. These two hypotheses allow the use of firearms ·after a warning, during the apprehension of an individual that has committed or is committing a crime, if that individual is resisting arrest or is trying to escape” and ·after warning, for the prevention of the escape of an individual detained for a crime of a general nature”.

The problem comes from the possibility to use firearms during the apprehension of an individual suspected of committing any kind of crime, even

a crime not involving violence against police officers or third parties. The possibility to the use firearms even when a person is suspected of committing a petty crime, such as shoplifting or document fraud, constitutes a direct contradiction of international law.

The text of article 2 of the European Convention, which protects the right of life, sets a clear and strict standard. According to the practice of the European Court, the use of force that threatens human life, is absolutely necessary only if it serves to prevent a violation against the life and health of other people, citizens or police officers.

This absolute necessity also requires that there is no other way to detain the suspected perpetrator. This is the meaning of absolute necessity in the use of firearms under the meaning of article 2 of the Convention.

The United Nations standard is the same. According to article 3 of the UN Code of Conduct of Law Enforcement Officials, law enforcement officials may use force only when ·strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty”. The commentary to the Code of Conduct states that the use of firearms is an extreme measure and should be applied only if ·the suspected offender offers armed resistance or otherwise jeopardizes the lives of others and less extreme measures are not sufficient to restrain or apprehend [him]”.

In 2005 and 2006, the European Court of Human Rights delivered two judgments in applications concerning violations of the right to life as a result of the use of firearms. In its judgment in the case of Nachova and Others v. Bulgaria, the Court held that the deaths of two conscripts who had fled from their army unit and were killed by a military police officer, violated article 2 of the Convention. In the case of Tsekov v. Bulgaria, the Court held that the use of firearms against a theft suspect, which resulted in his being injured, was a violation of the prohibition of inhuman treatment under article 3 of the Convention.

In its decisions, the Court explicitly noted Bulgarian law’s contradiction with international law on the use of firearms. With this, the Court confirmed the long-standing criticisms of human rights organisations. Unfortunately, the judgments of the European Court were not sufficient, and article 80 of the Interior Ministry Act remained unchanged in February 2006 when parliament adopted amendments to this Act. OBEKTIV 17

In the winter of 2006, more than 30,000 people from the Stolipinovo Roma ghetto in Plovdiv watched TV, cooked, did their laundry, bathed themselves and their babies, and heated their houses with electricity only at night. Why? Because they did not have electricity between 7 am and 7 pm every day. This has been going on for four years. It started on February 18, 2002, when after a sudden electricity cut, residents went out in the streets, police came, windows were broken, a trolley bus was stopped and stones were thrown at a bus carrying foreigners in the other Roma ghetto in the city, Sheker Mahala. In these four years, people have adjusted to this situation - if the weather is warm they are out on the street, since they are jobless anyway. The sun provides light during the day, those who have been lucky enough to find coal stoves enjoy the heat in their communist-built panel apartments, and we all know that television is interesting only in the evening...

T

his situation is not a novelty to anyone. Moreover, people have started to regard it as the status quo.

Nothing can be done, some say - it is a pity but if you do not pay your electric bill, you will not have electricity at your house. That is how a market economy works. However, this is not a case of the market economy; on the contrary, it is a case of economic bargaining.

On one hand there are the thousands of Roma families who are waiting for someone to cut their electric Gordian knot, and on the other hand, there are the politicians who are waiting for the next elections to come.

This alone makes the poor and needy Roma people an easy target for manipulation. Every time when elections are pending, the politicians open the bag of promises that the electricity supply will be restored in the Roma neighbourhoods. The result is obvious. Proof that politicians are using this tactic was a 2005 speech by Fikret Sepetchi, local leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. In the June 2005 parliamentary elections, the entire population of Stolipinovo voted for Sepetchi, which got him a seat in parliament. And when the next parliamentary elections come, we’ll think of something, the local political players tell themselves. There’s time yet.

According to Anton Karagyozov, a popular local Roma leader, this model of communication between the Roma and the politicians started in 1998, when Spas Garnevski, then mayor of Plovdiv and prominent leader of the then ruling Union of Democratic Forces, said in a speech that ·the Roma are socially disadvantaged and therefore they do not have to pay their electricity bills”.

And the wheel started turning... After February 18, 2002,

18 OBEKTIV

Stolipinovo lives from one elect Emil

there were numerous critical reports in the local press of Roma families who had illegally connected their houses to the electric network using bedsprings as giant heaters. What the media missed was that the authorities, both local and national, as well as the electricity company, had literally approved this or at least had turned a blind eye. In the end, the question was, if someone could use electricity without paying, what would stop him? Another question, however, is why this problem did not exist before 1989. Were the ·thievish” Roma more honest then?

The answer is simple. They had work then.

In the winter of 2002, several attempts were made to solve the problem. Almost every day, meetings were held between all local leaders - the district governor, the mayor, MPs and the bosses of the local electricity company, the Roma leaders. Not long after this, Roma organizations and the municipality and the electricity company reached an agreement. One aspect was clear - the accumulate debt of the Roma to the electricity company could not be paid at once. Therefore a compromise was agreed.

You pay one of the bills and the electricity is restored, and the debt gets paid in time, bit by bit.

According to Syuria Yusuf, a local activist and chair of the Edinstvo [Unity] organisation, the policy of the electricity company has been inconsistent. Yusuf headed a group of four Roma electricity inspectors who were to collect the debts according to the reached agreement. ·After the spokesperson of the local electricity company made a a televised statement in June 2003 that the Roma from Stolipinovo were still refusing to pay their bills, we presented data showing that, actually, the rate of collected bills was very high. After that statement, however, the policy of the electricity company changed.

For example, we had collected 4,800 Leva [2,400 euro] from one of the blocks in Stolipinovo. The next day, we paid the money in, but the electricity company cut off the electricity supply to the whole neighbourhood because there were some people who had not paid. After that, people just stopped believing us when we asked them to pay the bills, and stopped paying. After all, if nothing changes, why should you pay your bill? Besides this, there were inspectors who deliberately caused ten-

on night tariff ion to another COHEN

sion by restoring the electricity supply late in the day and then cutting it early in the morning. At the end we had to stop working as Roma inspectors, it was useless.

There was also no electricity. But there is certainly a double standard. An example of this is the Krairechna neighborhood, where electricity has not been cut, because the population is mixed - Bulgarians, Turks and Roma. In that neighborhood there are people who do not pay their electricity bills, but the electricity supply continues uninterrupted.”

I can talk for hours about the negotiations, the agreements and their subsequent failure; I have extensive records of this, but the conclusion is always the same.

When the rate of unemployment goes up, so does the poverty rate, and people’s incapability to pay their electricity bills. Gradually, because of the fear of riots and mostly for political reasons, the rate of collection of payments for electricity bills has gone down. There is still electricity for people who continue to not to pay their bills, and little by little, those who do pay regularly come to the conclusion that there is no point, so they also stop paying.

Attempts to find a temporary solution also have a long history. In the end, the electricity company came up with their own solution - they started cutting the electricity supply to the whole neighborhood. An interesting question is who pays for the electricity that people use at night? It is absurd to suggest that the now private electricity company has decided to present a free gift its customers. It is doubtful that there were such gifts in the days when the company was still owned by the state.

The people with whom I have spoken suggested that the so-called ·technological losses” have to do something with it. The value of the electricity supplied to Stolipinovo was charged and covered by the company as ·technological losses”, an expense covered by the state. It is highly probable that this situation continues today. This not hard to do as long as there is a decision behind it. You will never see such a decision, of course, on paper. It is interesting that neither engineer Shutov, former head of the distribution department at the electricity company, nor any one else from the company agreed to meet with me to discuss this.

The head of the public relations department, Ms. Marinova, has an office in Stara Zagora and without her authorization, no one from the company based in Plovdiv dared speak, and cited all kinds of excuses. Mehmed Hasan, deputy mayor of Iztochen region of Plovdiv municipality, turned out to be ·extremely busy” on the day when we had a double confirmed agreement to meet in Stolipinovo. Hasan knew that the purpose of the meeting was to talk about the electricity issue in Stolipinovo.

Is there a solution to the issue? Will the events of February 2005 be repeated? Could the problem be solved with a few broken windows this time?

The people who took the last decision - about the electricity being written off as ·technology losses”, must take the decision. Such people are at the top political level.

There are various ways to solve the problem. One is for the state to help decrease the already accumulated debt although no one can give the exact amount of the debt. Some say that it is close to six million Leva [three million Euro].

The state could find a way to collect this debt step by step, but the most effective solution would be for the state to cover the whole sum. In the 21st century, access to electricity should be considered as peoples’ unconditional right - to some extent, of course. In every case the practice of installing the electrometers ten meters above ground level should stop.

Electrical meters should be within peoples’ houses.

In this way, everyone would be able to protect his own electrical meter and a neighbour would not be able to steal from the electricity supply. At present everyone steals from the ·common electricity supply”, which can be qualified as ·quasi common”. It is a simple principle; everyone protects their own property.

Once this is done, there can be a clean start.

At present people get help from the state for their heating, while others rely on social welfare. We must acknowledge that among the thousands of unemployed, there are hundreds of people who actually go to work. Both categories can, to some extent, pay for their electricity consumption. It is not difficult a difficult thing for the company to come up with a technology that registers this consumption from a distance. This will simply cost a certain amount of money. With such technology, the people of Stolipinovo would be the same as any other Bulgarian, and will consume that amount of electricity for which they are able to pay.

However, there is one condition for this to happen.

All politicians must give up their ambitions to manipulate the people of Stolipinovo and tempt them with promises before every election. In this ·election bargain”, candidates for seats in Parliament offer promises and we the people who vote, fall for these promises. There is some cynicism in that because the purchase takes place in advance. One can never be sure that the candidate will actually stick to what has been promised. The cynicism in the electricity issue in the case of the Roma, however, has no boundaries.

OBEKTIV 19

Politicians exploit Bulgarians’ fear of ·assimilation”

TT

Svetoslav NIKOLOV New Europe Radio

20 OBEKTIV

he state came up with its own idea of a demographic crisis and started seeking solutions. The state made it clear that nothing would stop its efforts to find a solution to the crisis - not even the free choice of the individual. Those in power still continue to look at the people as subordinates, who need governance but not consideration, or recourse to power. It may turn out, however, that the state’s perception is wrong.

When there is a problem with the demographic development of the nation, the use of the term ·demographic crisis” has implications - the old ·fear of assimilation of the nation”, from the years of communism, is revived with new force. Debate on the ·crisis” started after a meeting between President Georgi Parvanov and experts on the subject. After that meeting, one thing remained in the mind of the average media consumer. This was a warning by sociologist Mihail Mirchev that if the current pattern of demographic development continues, by 2050 the population of Bulgaria will have shrunk to 5.2 million people, of whom only 60 per cent will be of Bulgarian descent.

Although the state so far has failed to determine the right number of ethnic Bulgarians in the country, we can see that beyond doubt there has been considerable progress in this direction. Parvanov made it clear that his position was politically correct: ·There is no basis for speculating about the ethnic theme”. In response, nationalist political organization IMRO immediately stated that ·the contraceptive culture of the minorities must be improved”. Miroslav Murdzov, MP from the Bulgarian People’s Union group and secretary-general of the IMRO, said in plain terms to New Europe Radio that ·the Bulgarian ethnos is in danger”.

These are the messages behind which the real debates about the demographic ·crisis” are being conducted - that Bulgarians are being assimilated, that ethnic minorities have taken over our country. Messages like these will lead us to a real crisis. Such debates will be motivated by fear, and skillful politicians will be ready to take advantage with populist slogans, because any other kind of public discourse will not win you electoral support, and elections are not far away. Is it possible for the forthcoming presidential elections in November to be the reason for the thesis that ·the critical processes, which in all these years had characterized the demographic situation in Bulgaria, had become a problem of Bulgaria’s national security”. I want to ask where the head of state was, as he put it, ·in all those years”, allowing this problem to turn into a crisis. It is an old rule that when society feels the real threat of a crisis, no one looks for the most rational decisions, but looks for the easiest solutions. Given the rise of populism today, is it possible that organizations such as the nationalist Ataka party and the Bulgarian National Union led by Boyan Rassate, which promise to return Bulgaria back to Bulgarians and offer ·bulgareaucracy”, to trip up President Parvanov on his way to a second term, because of statements like this? I wonder how such organizations plan to solve the demographic crisis.

The combination of Parvanov’s idea that ·the crisis is now a problem of national security” and Mirchev’s statement that there will be ·only 60 per cent Bulgarians after 45 years” not only creates the feeling of an enemy in the public mind, but also shapes the image of the enemy. The enemy will not be the state, which failed to create good living conditions, the state which also failed to provide prospects of implementation, the state which failed to take care of every child in school, the state, which has given up on the health culture of its people, and it will not be the state, which has failed to propose an effective social policy. The enemy will take the form of ethnic minorities and minorities in general. This is not a prognosis. What’s frightening is that this is already happening. Meanwhile all institutions are dealing with much more important things, such as writing a strategy for demographic development until 2020 and preparing for the next elections.

The important debate on the demographic problem and human capital will have to wait.

TRANSPARENCY the Bulgarian and the European way Emil COHEN

A

t the end of November 2005, the Dutch member of the European Parliament Els de Groen, who is wellknown in Bulgaria, sent an inquiry to the European Commission and a letter to the Bulgarian parliament on the issue of transparency in the Bulgarian National Assembly.

For the readers of Obektiv it will be interesting to learn about the comparison made by Els de Groen about the way the European Parliament informs the public about its activities (in 25 languages!) and the way the Bulgarian parliament does the same.

In the information era, the Internet is the main source of information. What then can one learn from the websites of the two parliaments?

ABOUT THE MPS’ WORK The main duty of MPs is to draft legislative proposals and control the executive by putting forward questions.

Everybody would agree that voters have the right to know what their MPs are doing - after all, they are doing it for them. The website of the European Parliament (http://www.europarl.eu.int) publishes the questions of each MP - we are talking about thousands of questions!

The site also publishes the answers given by the respective members of the European Commission. The website of the Bulgarian Parliament (http://www.parliament.bg) features no such thing.

The same applies to the vast number of proposed resolutions or supplements made by the 732 Members of the European Parliament. In Bulgaria, one can learn such matters only if from the TV or the press, and only if the respective initiative of the MP ·smells of scandal” so that the media would be interested.

ABOUT THE WORK OF THE COMMITTEES When one opens the website of the Bulgarian Parliament, one immediately understands that the committees are something of importance. Because all draft bills are uploaded in the respective committee websites. However, what the draft bills’ original texts were, or what modifications they passed through to reach the committee and subsequently the parliamentary floor, remains completely obscure. The reason is that committee session minutes are not published.

Only the minutes of parliamentary sessions are published. And everybody knows that the main lobbying happens in the committee sessions, where an MP with an interest makes changes to a draft bill that later scandalizes the public. It is true that according to the rules of parliament, committee sessions are open to the public, but how many of us (apart from accredited

journalists) can spare time in a working day to go and listen to these discussions? And getting the pass to do so is no easy thing. We can rely only on what leaks into the media. In comparison with this practice, the European Parliament website features the complete records of all committee discussions within a day or two after the sessions were held.

ABOUT DRAFT BILLS A series of draft bills, for example draft bills on various ratifications, are missing from the website of the Bulgarian Parliament. You can see only their titles, but not their content. Apparently there is a presumption that such bills are boring and there is no need for them to be made public. This might have been true if it was not for the fact that among these draft bills there are some that are crucial to Bulgaria’s development in the years ahead.

Yes, at least we know that we will learn about them from the media because they are important bills. I already mentioned the lack of information about the different stages of a draft bill before it is voted.

ABOUT ACCESS TO MPS You can find the e-mail address of every member of the European Parliament on its website, not to mention other forms of communication.

On the website of the Bulgarian Parliament, members do not even have telephone numbers under their names (even if you want to speak to some of their associates). All MPs share one address - the Parliament building - no telephone numbers, no e-mail addresses. Probably they still do not know how to use the Internet... Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are given only for committees and the parties’ parliamentary groups.

Find the MP, if you can.

However if you think that the website of the Bulgarian Parliament is useful you are wrong.

You will see very detailed information with visuals of all official meetings and receptions involving the Speaker and his deputies. You will also see lists of members of party groups (without any documents from the groups unless they have been made public in Parliament), with visuals but without a way to contact them.

There are also lists of committees, as well as schedules for the day and the week and records of Parliament’s sessions. As mentioned above, you can find some of the draft bills, but you will find them ·well cooked”. The process of the ·cooking”, however, is unknown. No Comment, some might say regarding this situation. However we all know that when it comes to transparency and e-government, our politicians are very skillful speakers.

OBEKTIV 21

Education remains off limits for children Slavka KUKOVA

31 January 2006 Stara Planina Mountain, Ilakov Rut village A team from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee visits a home for children with developmental disabilities. The building has been repaired recently and is depressingly warm. The head of the facility, the nurses and the teachers consider themselves to be the ·mothers of the children”, and they are in a ·very poor condition”. Children aged between four and 20 are gathered in two rooms with one TV set each and a multitude of chairs and benches. The children are quiet and obedient. To every question that we ask, we hear the whispered response, ·They cannot”, ·They are very underdeveloped”.

The children who can speak welcome us with songs and an overwhelming desire to make themselves liked, because they know that people coming from the outside often bring toys and food. We do not.

I have been witnessing this situation since 2001. In the meantime, ministries and government agencies are drafting and issuing strategy paper after strategy paper about decentralization, integration and individual programmes for the development and education of the children. Monitoring researches are being carried out, reports with recommendations are being published, but nobody cares to inform the people on the front line about these activities.

The head of the facility that we are visiting is neither new in the post, nor has he been on leave. She is surprised at every question we ask about the children’s education. She tells us that a year ago, a journalist from the Bulgarian National Television did a story about the home and picked two children whom she took to Sofia for a psychiatric examination. The psychiatrist and his team from the Alexandrovska Hospital concluded that the children were capable of studying. The head of the home then asked her colleague at the Novo Selo special school, near the city of Veliko Turnovo, if there were any vacant places at her school. In this way, the two children were enrolled in the school. The Novo Selo special school even said that they had room for more children with disabilities. The head of the home decided that two other children, who were ·more preserved” and ·clever” could go to Novo Selo and sent them for assessment by a school commission. The two children were also enrolled and started studying. She told us that she did not keep in touch with the regional education inspectorate, and was unaware they had requested any information about the four children who had been sent to the school in Novo Selo.

At the home, we enter a room with 15 children - the serious cases. Only one of the children speaks to us. She shows us the socks that she is knitting and tells us she sells

22 OBEKTIV

them for 2 Leva each (1 Eur). The rest do not communicate with us. They just stare at a point in front of them and sway to and fro. Some clapped their hands as we entered the room. Others had scars on their faces. The nurses tell us that children hurt themselves by hitting their heads against the walls. This is why the staff wraps the children in blankets so that their hands are not free. Some of the children abruptly pull back when we try to touch them. We are told they are severely brain damaged and that’s why they do it.

The second group of children consists of two separate small groups because the teacher of one of the groups is on leave. Children with different abilities count from 1 to 10 out loud together with their teacher. She holds a child that cannot walk in her arms. Some of the children immediately ask us where we come from and why we are there. They say they want to leave the home. Others ask me for a piece of paper and start writing the letters that they know.

I ask Stanislav, who can write his name and the entire alphabet, why he isn’t at school. He looks back understandingly and replies: ·They will send me this year. I had to turn 14”. At the same time Dimitar holds my hand, with the clear determination to keep me for leaving. His eyes say a lot. He cannot speak, but he can hear. His medical records reveal that he was born from a normal pregnancy and had lived with his mother for a year. His development rapidly deteriorated upon admission to the home. According to the personnel, a speech therapist was working with him. Dimitar is also 14.

We also meet the group leader. He had been through every kind of childcare institution. He is already 20 and wants to go to another home.

We ask the head of the home why the children are not in school. She says they are uneducable. We ask her if they had problems with finding funding for education.

She said that they did not. She explained that there was no psychologist in the area who could examine the children, and the assigned psychiatrist had become head of a hospital department and had no time to visit the home.

However, even when he had visited, he had never changed a diagnosis but had only examined the children who were aggressive or had behavioural problems.

30 January 2006 Mindia village, Special school The BHC last visited this school in 2002. We want to see what has changed since then. At 11 am we see a group of children who tell us that they are going to have lunch in about an hour. They say they have finished their classes for the day. Two teachers turn up in 15 minutes. There are 80 children in the school, but only half of them actually study.

Most of the parents do not even bring their children back after holidays. The staff does not have the funds to

with developmental disabilities fetch the children from their homes so that they can attend school. We saw the large bedrooms, with 16 to 17 beds and no personal belongings, no posters, textbooks or books. Only beds from Germany, and a computer hall with 10 PCs. We inspect the classrooms for the beginner classes, which are cold and very empty. Only desks, chalkboards and empty lockers.

The school for advanced students is in a building a kilometer away. In the garden, the children from the gardening class plant their flowers. Neither they, nor anyone from the staff knows what flowers they are growing. We enter other classrooms, to find them as cold, and again with no signs of lessons being organised. ·It’s Monday,” the teachers say, ·most of the children are not back from visiting their families.

That is why we unite classes and we use only a few classrooms, to save energy for heating”.

We are shown to the bookcase with the textbooks and notebooks of all children. The bookcase is in the teachers’ room. They have textbooks for grades 7 and 8 as well as textbooks for beginners. We see the records for children’s attendance or absence. Only a few pages had been used since September 15 - the beginning of the school year - 25.10.2005, 11.11.2005, 07.12.2005, 20.12.2005. There was also a history lesson plan for a 7th grader. There were records for no more than 10 other students and different subjects.

Outside, some of the children laughed at their friends who could not read and write. The children are 13-14 years old, and are at an advanced level. We were allowed to see the personal records of the children, to see if something had changed in the acceptance procedure. We saw protocols, signed and sealed by two teams, an internal one at the school and a team from the regional education inspectorate in Veliko Turnovo.

From the records, we could not understand exactly who had done the examinations, or what the conclusions and recommendations were. The only things that were clear were the diagnoses - a slight or moderate developmental disability. And that the memory and intellect of a certain child were ·reduced” and the imagination ·limited”.

The children, however, are very communicative.

They speak to us about life in the school, what food they like and who their friends are. Their siblings are with them.

Most of the children are of Romani origin and have never attended another type of school. They come from the surrounding Roma neighbourhoods and are embarrassed to tell us what they had learned. We spoke to the head of the school who said that the main goal of this special school was to teach the children hygiene habits and social skills.

The headmaster said that the level of education at the school was not something to talk about. However, formally there had been individual plans for teaching

and education but they all had been filled out in the same way. One of the educators was happy to tell us that the school was to be repaired with money coming from a foundation, and the project had already been approved. Everyone hoped that the deputy headmaster, a former MP, would help the school.

I ask myself if there is any kind of integration at all, and where the communication between two ministries is breaking down. These two ministries - the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the Ministry of Education - are responsible for the fate of 11,000 children with developmental disabilities. Who should start explaining the new law, regulations and instructions to the staff, and how?

Why are they putting these questions to me, and why are they more willing to follow the recommendations of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, rather than those of their employers - mayors and ministers?

How long is the road between the elaboration of a regulation and amendment of the Education Act, on the one hand, and its implementation on the other?

Must the price of every change be the loss of jobs for employees and deprivation of the children from education so that people in this field would actually start reading and following the laws that set out their duties and responsibilities? How strong should the control for implementing a ministry instruction be? Why, when clerks in Sofia issue documents, do they not just for once think about whether they really work or not?

How many children in Bulgaria have to remain illiterate and uncared for so that senior officials, teachers and educators put an end to their endless explanations and excuses that children with developmental disabilities ·cannot” be taught anything?

OBEKTIV 23

Ognyanova and Choban v. Bulgaria judgment

Travesty of investigation after death of detainee in custody Ivan FISER, Human rights consultant

O

n 24 February 2006, in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights published it decision in Ognyanova and Choban v. Bulgaria. The judgment concerns the death of 23-year-old Zahari Stefanov in Kazanluk police station in June 1993. An official investigation at the time concluded that this man of Romani origin had voluntarily jumped out of a third-floor room where he was being questioned and that all his injuries had been caused by the fall.

It has taken almost 13 years for the full results of the investigation conducted by the Bulgarian authorities into Stefanov’s death to come to light. The Strasbourg court established that several of Stefanov’s basic human rights had been violated, including the rights to life, to be free from torture and from arbitrary detention. As befits such documents, the decision is written in dispassionate, legal language. Although extensive, it contains only the bare skeleton of information that is legally relevant to the matter at hand. The decision does not provide many clues to what really happened to Stefanov such a long time ago. Nevertheless, anyone who takes the time to read it would not have difficulties inferring that Stefanov, before falling to his death, must have suffered considerable pain and indignities.

In any case it was not up to the Strasbourg court to establish the circumstances in which Stefanov died. That had been the duty of the Bulgarian authorities, under both international and national law. The Bulgarian authorities had been legally bound to investigate what had happened to Stefanov while in police custody and how he had suffered injuries which resulted in death. Such an investigation should have fully complied with international legal requirements for promptness, thoroughness and objectivity. It was the conduct of the Bulgarian authorities in performing this duty that had been the focus of the examinations before the Strasbourg court.

In the end, the European judges were unanimous in their findings. Firstly, his right to life had been violated by the Bulgarian authorities who had failed to provide a plausible explanation of the incident that caused Stefanov’s death. A further violation of this right was established by an analysis of the conduct of the investigation and the information collected, which led the Strasbourg court to conclude that the investigation had not been thorough and objective.

The Court also established that many of Stefanov’s injuries were unlikely to have occurred in the fall. In fact, some of the injuries, according to the Court, were indicative of injuries suffered as a result of torture and other 24 OBEKTIV

cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The judges’ reasoning was partly based on the fact that these injuries had not been properly accounted for in postmortem medical examinations. Because the Bulgarian authorities had failed to properly investigate how these injuries occurred, the court found that Stefanov’s right to be free from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment had also been violated.

Furthermore, as no proper records were presented to the Court about the reasons why Stefanov had been arrested in the first place, the Court found that his right to be free from arbitrary detention had been breached.

And finally, because there had been no effective criminal investigation, Stefanov’s family had been denied the right to an effective legal remedy. The Court granted Stefanov’s family financial compensation for non-pecuniary damages - a legal term, in this instance, denoting the pain caused by the death of a loved one.

There should be much less legal jargon in what follows. For this article is not intended for lawyers. After all, positions taken by the Strasbourg court in this decision are not new and can be found in a number of previous cases implicating Bulgarian authorities and concern similarly tragic events.

What follows is something that has not been detailed in the Strasbourg court’s decision which only vaguely refers to allegations that Stefanov had been ill-treated by the police. It was precisely these allegations that have indelibly been cast in my memory and that of many people around the world who were troubled by Zahari Stefanov’s tragic end and who appealed to the Bulgarian authorities to do their duty by international law.

In June 1993, within days after Zahari Stefanov’s death, by pure coincidence, I arrived in Sofia on my first trip to Bulgaria as a representative of Amnesty International. My Bulgarian colleagues who had only recently established the Human Rights Project, a non-governmental organization concerned with the protection of human rights of Roma, told me about Stefanov’s case.

We then traveled together to Dubovo, the village where he had lived with his young family. I still vividly remember that trip and the interviews in the impoverished Roma neighbourhood, a community of about 700 people.

I learned there how Zahari Stefanov had been arrested on 4 June 1993 by three police officers at the Dubovo railway station. The police suspected him of being involved in a group of thieves. Several people including some who worked at the railway station had observed Stefanov being beaten by the police officers immediately after his

arrest. The unfortunate young man, father of two, was then taken to the Mayor’s office. News traveled fast in the village and Stefanov’s mother-in-law came to the office to inquire about him. In the corridor, outside the room where Stefanov was being questioned, she and another woman heard him crying. After about an hour Stefanov was led out of the room. His feet were so swollen that he had to be helped to put on his shoes. Outside, a police officer pointing to the car boot, reportedly told Stefanov: ·Come here Lassie, you know your place”.

The police then took Stefanov to his home and told him to collect all the goods he had allegedly stolen. He took a few items and told the family that the police would not release him otherwise. The officers manhandled him even in his home, in view of his family.

As the ‘collection of evidence’ continued Stefanov was taken to another house in the neighbourhood. An older woman described to me how three police officers punched and beat Stefanov, while a crowd of people gathered to protest such brutal conduct. An officer then reportedly fired several shots in the air and the people dispersed.

From Dubovo, Stefanov was taken to Kazanluk. Two days later word had reached his family the he had died.

According to the television and press reports he had committed suicide by jumping from the third story office where he was being interrogated. At the time when I met Stefanov’s family they had not been given a death certificate and had been told that there was no autopsy report that they could examine.

My Bulgarian colleagues and I wanted to hear what the police in Kazanluk had to say about Stefanov’s tragic end. Although it was early afternoon, when we arrived at the station there was no officer available to speak to us. They were all at a meeting, out of town.

With its considerable expertise in opposing torture, Amnesty International assessed the information I collected in Dubovo and found that there was sufficient prima facie evidence that Stefanov, before he died in suspicious circumstances, had been subjected to torture. The organization called on its members to urge Bulgarian authorities to comply with its international obligations and to initiate a full and impartial investigation into the case.

In subsequent years, on return visits to Sofia I tried to engage the officials I met in the General Prosecutor’s office to show me information that would indicate that the investigators into Stefanov’s death had carried out their duty in good faith and in line with international standards. On once such occasion, in January 1996, I was received by Colonel Nikolay Kolev, then acting Prosecutor of the Bulgarian Armed Forces. He told me that the investigation in this as well as in other cases brought to his attention by my organization had been completed.

And then he added that he could not give copies of the investigation reports or of the autopsy reports because they were considered classified information. These documents, he told me, were of sensitive military nature and protected by an international treaty, apparently one of the agreements concluded in Vienna by the superpow-

ers at the height of the Cold war, governing strategic nuclear arms. When he proceeded to show to me the relevant issue of the Official Gazette where this treaty had been published I found it difficult to hide my bemusement with this absurd defence.

Almost 13 years after my visit to Dubovo and Kazanluk, reading the detailed judgment of the Strasbourg court, I found out how the Bulgarian investigators described the events leading to this young man’s death. The initial investigation report stated, among other things: ·Mr Stefanov, still handcuffed, bolted from his chair, made towards the open window and climbed on the window sill by stepping on a chair placed under the window.

Chief sergeant H.B. shouted: ·This one is going to run”.

Lieutenant I.C. turned around and saw Mr Stefanov in the window frame, one leg out in the air and the other leg inside the room. The lieutenant shouted: ·Don’t jump!”, but Mr Stefanov threw his other leg out of the window and jumped.” My pedantic mind attempted to visualize this account and I pondered at the absurd image: the man standing in the window frame one leg out in the air the other leg inside. Then he throws the other leg out of the window. Perhaps something got lost in translation. And perhaps the context of the finely drafted European judgement makes the Bulgarian investigator’s report appear as an even greater travesty of justice.

At the end of the day, in the text of the Strasbourg decision, I found the details that further convinced me that in June 1993, my Bulgarian colleagues and I had been right to believe Stefanov had been subjected to torture. Injuries to the head and chest, which caused Stefanov’s death, indicate that he fell with his head and upper body first hitting the ground. Among many injuries there are those like bruises on Stefanov’s buttocks that appear to me unlikely to have been suffered in the fall.

But the autopsy report also describes injuries on Stefanov’s feet. Not a doubt in my mind how he had suffered these.

I immediately recognized these swellings as characteristic injuries following beatings on the soles of the feet. These are highly unlikely to have been suffered in a fall, head first to the ground.

I will remember the tragic fate of Zahari Stefanov.

And I regret that much of my Bulgarian experiences in the Nineties were connected to many other cases of Roma who had fallen victim to racist police brutality.

Last week, after a long interview, a journalist asked me if I would finish by telling him a story with a happy ending.

I had to explain how in my line of work, assisting people who have suffered human rights violations, the stories are mostly about pain and injustice. Whatever the ultimate outcome I did not consider it a happy one. Certainly no such ending for this story.

Correction: In the last edition of Obektiv an error was made in the designation of the author of the article “Travesty of investigation after death of detainee in custody”. Ivan Fiser is a human rights consultant based in London.

OBEKTIV 25

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB

Can a demographic policy be put in place Four decades ago, the birth of the eight-millionth Bulgarian was loudly celebrated. At the time, those in power were planning and estimating, with all the happiness of a farmer whose animals are rapidly multiplying, when the nine million mark would be reached. But this point has not been reached. Since that time, the birth rate in Bulgaria - as in most other European countries - has been declining. Since 1990, there has been no natural growth in population. As a result of the continuing process of emigration that has followed the democratic changes in the country, and with the end more than a decade ago of control by the authorities of travel abroad, the number of Bulgarian citizens has declined. Apocalyptic forecasts by some social scientists and demographers say that our nation will shrink by half within just a few decades, and in the long term, will disappear completely.

Every Bulgarian government since 1968 has been trying to intervene in this process. In that year, a decree intended to stimulate the birth rate was signed. It gave parents the benefit of child care, a measure that had been introduced first

by French president General Charles de Gaulle. At the time, when there was scant possibility of emigration, the measures decreed by the Bulgarian government seemed viable. The sale of contraceptives was banned, and committees could decide whether to allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy. But this approach, which regarded the country’s population as stock, failed to turn the tide.

At the beginning of March 2006, the present government presented its new demographic strategy. Work on this strategy had started under the government headed by then-prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha, but had not been 26 OBEKTIV

completed during that government’s term of office. The strategy aims to slow the shrinkage of the population by 2020 by stimulating birth rates and through the expected immigration. In the past few years, especially after Bulgaria signed its accession treaty with NATO and was given a date of entry into the European Union, the number of people wanting Bulgarian citizenship has increased vastly.

The reason is not so much Bulgaria’s economic development, but that would-be citizens hope to use Bulgarian citizenship as a means to move on to live and work in EU countries.

Many countries put up obstacles to immigration, using various means to select people who have the best qualifications and the best prospects to be considered for citizenship. Whether Bulgaria will succeed in this is yet to be seen.

Immigration could accelerate xenophobia in Bulgaria, which now even has representation in Parliament through political parties such as Ataka.

Is the Government strategy realistic, how will it be implemented, and - most of all - can politicians actually influence the birth rate and demographic processes? To discuss these issues, we invited Nikola Cholakov, associate professor at the University of World and National Economy, and Dr Mihail Ivanov, adviser on ethnic issues to former Bulgarian president Zhelyu Zhelev and chair of the Working Group that started work on the strategy during the Saxe-Coburg Gotha administration.

We also invited a representative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.

The Ministry’s media liaison office promised that if an expert could not participate in our discussion, they would reply to our questions in written form. Unfortunately, we have received no answers.

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB

Demographic strategies have been drafted since the 1960s, when the person responsible was Pencho Kubadinski, at the time a prominent figure in the Bulgarian Communist Party. What is new in the present government’s new demographic strategy?

Associate Professor Nikola Cholakov: ·WE WILL NEED AN IMPORTED WORKFORCE”

Dr. Mihail Ivanov: ·THE PROBLEM OF THE GHETTOS IS NOT AN ETHNIC ONE”

Mihail Ivanov: I am taking part in this discussion with mixed feelings, because until mid-2005 I chaired the working group appointed by the then-prime minister Saxe-Coburg Gotha to draft a National Strategy on Demographic Development. After I left the Council of Ministers’ administration, this work was continued with the active participation of Professor Atanas Atanasov. Under his leadership, a draft National Strategy for the Demographic Development of the Republic of Bulgaria (2006-2020) was completed, and published at the end of 2005. This is the text that was presented to President Georgi Purvanov, and that was the basis for the work of the Council on Demographic Issues, recently established by President Parvanov.

The innovation in our approach is to try to shift the emphasis from the idea of increasing the birth rate, to the idea of securing high quality ·human capital”. This is a relatively new expression, taking account of people’s health status, abilities, and skills. Our emphasis is not so much on the increase or decrease in the population, which is indeed important, but on a factual assessment of how healthy this population is, and of its educational and professional stratification and structure. We also emphasize the balanced development of the population in terms of age, education, health status, and gender, because such factors are key to a better quality of life.

The demographic strategies previously launched in Bulgaria were aimed at achieving a strategic goal reaching a certain number of population. In pursuit of this, the strategies set out the correct social and economic conditions to achieve this. We, on the contrary, offer a strategy where the goals are geared towards shaping a certain social and economic environment that will lead to the desired changes in the number and content of the population.

We must be realistic in our prognoses. Throughout Europe, a negative birth rate is nothing new. The countries with the best indicators, such as France and Ireland, have a total indicator for fertility of 1.7-1.8, OBEKTIV 27

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB which does not lead to reproduction, which is achieved at 2.1.

What is the situation in Bulgaria? The integral indicator that can evaluate a sharp discrepancy in health care, is death rates. Compared to other European countries, Bulgaria has high death rates, including a high overall death rate and a high maternal death rate, a high premature death rate among men, and a high infant mortality rate. The indicators of the death rates among the Roma and Turkish minorities in Bulgaria are typical for the most underdeveloped Third World countries. What is the conclusion: the critical state shown by this demographic index is a consequence of the crisis in our health care system. Our health care must be radically improved at an organisational level, in terms of revenues and the way that these are spent. According to the National Health Care Strategy adopted by the government in 2001, the share of GDP dedicated to health care was meant to be 5.8 per cent in 2005.

Instead, it was only 4.3 per cent. This is the core of the matter.

The same applies to the educational system of our society. In our analysis, we drew on data that showed that in the past 15 years, the number of illiterate and functionally illiterate young people has increased. These young people are mainly from the urban poor, people living in villages, and most of all from the two major ethnic minorities - the Roma and the Turks. According to United Nations Population Fund expert Sergei Sherbov’s analysis of Bulgaria, published at our symposium, if current trends continue at the same pace, the number of working people with higher education will remain the same while the number of illiterate people will double.

Sherbov’s recommendation is clear - the Bulgarian Government should invest in education. This is something completely achievable.

The ongoing crisis in education in Bulgaria is causing a crisis in human capital, and yet for education we devote a proportion of our GDP that is less than that of EU countries: 4.1-4.2 per cent. The next step is to consider the territorial imbalances, between undeveloped and wealthy regions, between city and village, and so on. A further imbalance is in regard to the vulnerability of families, especially young families. Recently, there has been talk that a Family Protection Act should be adopted. I think this is a good idea. There should be more effective protection and care for mothers throughout their pregnancy, after having their child, and then throughout childhood especially for mothers who have professional ambitions.

Afterwards, the draft was taken up by administators, and I have to say, it was spoiled to a large extent. The provisions were rearranged, new clauses were introduced, others removed, and through this, the logic of the draft suffered and the 28 OBEKTIV

systematic order no longer made sense. But this is the lesser evil. What is worse is that a new section was added to the strategy in the draft, ·Objectives of the Main Directions”, these take the form of general recommendations.

The consequence is, as in the attached draft plan, activities in various programmes and plans have been messed up, and have not been given financial security, something that has of late become common practice. There is no real coordination among various fields involved in areas of possible co-operation.

There is a syndrome in Bulgaria of coming up with plans in such a way that nothing can result. Those matters set out in the strategy as general goals and as areas where an impact must be made have been deprived of their identities as a result of the current state of the plan.

Of course, the documents are still in the process of being discussed. Emilia Maslarova, Minister of Labour and Social Policy, gave a briefing to journalists on the demographic strategy. At the same time, the question of a broad debate on the draft strategy and plan was raised (especially by the trade unions) at the January 2006 meeting of the President’s Consultative Council. Such a debate, it was suggested, should take place before the draft is approved by the Cabinet.

But such a debate is not happening. That is why this discussion on the pages of Obektiv magazine fills a vacuum, and that is why it is so useful.

Associate Professor Nikola Cholakov: The document that we are talking about has aspects that are new and aspects that have long been forgotten. My colleagues have chosen a difficult task. The team includes scientists, but also administrative officials. My experience tells me that these two professions hardly ever work well together. A scientist has difficulty in understanding the way that a bureaucrat thinks and works. The same applies to the bureaucrat. For a bureaucrat, real life happens between four walls.

This inadequate approach, of mixed expert and administrative people, has nowhere in the world led to good results. I see here that colleagues of mine, professors and scientists, are trying to make policy and the result usually is to see politicians behaving as experts. It will only result in a mess, and in the end, nothing good will come of it.

For me, this product will have problems in its further development, because it stands on a weak foundation. I think that the universities and the Bulgarian Academy of Science should give their opinion and say: ·This will be the demographic situation in Bulgaria in the next fifty or hundred years” and our politicians should come up with an adequate policy and find money to implement it.

Another big trap is that in some places the project refers to ·demographic development”, but at the same time talks about education, health care, culture, share of working people, unemployment, in-

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB comes, etc. Such a wide understanding does not help demography.

What is new in the draft? Major attention is given to the whole process, from marriage, to pregnancy, birth and the raising of children, etc. This is not demography. Still, I believe that such an approach is positive, and all the efforts of my colleagues - the demographers, social and culture scientists - should be united in this direction as well, because it is a complex problem.

The function of the family is very different today to what it was fifty or a hundred years ago. Back then, the whole function of the family was to raise children and secure their existence. Family life today is far more difficult. The raising of children is just one of the family’s functions. Now we have two spouses who have professions and want careers, and are seeking more prestigious work and contacts in society. It is very difficult for parents today to stay in the framework of the family. Children today have a different meaning. That is why in all developed countries we are seeing decreasing birth rates.

We can expect that the total coefficient of fertility will be 1.4 by 2020-2025. This is not a lucky guess. According to demographic data published by the UN, the coefficient for Bulgaria in 2050 will be 1.5, which is very realistic. But I think that THIS INDICATOR WILL HARDLY INCREASE IN THE FUTURE and if this happens, it will not be soon, bearing in mind the world tendencies. Currently, only a few countries in Africa have a high integral fertility coefficient of 7.0, but the birth rate there is also going down. Outside Africa, such indicators are seen only in Afghanistan, East Timor and Yemen and from the Americas - only in Haiti. In the past fifty years, the birth rate in Europe has also been going down. The situation is the same in the United States and Canada. In the past, families in the US had up to twelve children, but the present American family has one or two children. The same applies in Europe as well.

The coefficient of 2.1, which secures a full replacement of generations, has not been achieved anywhere. Ireland has the highest rate of 2.0. France has about 1.71.8. Northern Italy, not Bulgaria, has been the European champion in terms of a decrease in the birth rate in the past twenty to thirty years.

The strategy makes certain attempts to suggest that an increase in birth rate is possible, but this is not so striking. That is why I would not take this seriously, as long as it does not raise some expectations in political circles that it is possible. If, in some way someone is suggesting to the authorities that there could be a policy that will boost the birth rate in Bulgaria, this will be a certain setback to the times of Pencho Kubadinski and Peko Takov. My opinion is that such a term has no meaning. You cannot talk about man-

agement of the birth rate in general, and in this sense, encouragement is meaningless.

Are you saying that these processes cannot be managed and encouraged?

If politicians cannot influence demographic processes, then there can be no demographic policy.

Nikola Cholakov: The term ·demographic policy” is debatable. When we talk about the strategy, we understand the social policy, the policy on health care, and the policy on education. What I like about the project is that most of it is not about demography. The project could include other things about the birth rate as well, but not defined as part of demography and as demography policy. According to me, there should be a special register of pregnant women and pregnancy should be monitored by specialists. The draft says that parents who regularly pay their health insurance to the state will get benefits, which means only that the demographic, or actually the social, policy will be separated from those who have not paid their insurance.

Such people are often representatives of the minorities and the poor. What should be done with them? This will only cause a social problem.

I think that there is no need for financial help (whether one-off or bonuses) for the raising of children. If there is such a need, then it should be at the beginning of the pregnancy, or at least in the last four or five months. These funds should be allocated mainly to the health care of pregnant women and mothers and to the education of the minors. This should not happen uncontrolled.

Mihail Ivanov: The approach of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is that the whole complex of issues and problems related to the development of the population should direct the state to a policy of effective actions to overcome the crisis in health care, education and social and regional policy.

There is a certain fear in society of an ethnic imbalance, and that Bulgaria might be left without Bulgarians at the end: de-Bulgarisation, as the nationalists call it. How will the strategy solve this problem?

Mihail Ivanov: We haven’t thought of balance on an ethnic basis. This would contradict our unOBEKTIV 29

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB derstanding of ethnic equality.

The truth, however, is that illiteracy has increased in our society in the past few years, especially among the large minority groups. The problem is not that they are ethnic Turks or Roma; but rather that they are illiterate.

Large groups of people are living in ghettos and poor agricultural regions where the level of health care and education is on the level of an undeveloped country.

Many Bulgarians are also living in these ghettos and poor regions, and their situation is the same.

Unfortunately, certain circles in our society are stoking fear that we will turn into a Roma nation. The reproduction rate among the Roma is 19/1000, but the infant mortality rate is 25/1000. In 1992, those who defined themselves as Roma added up to 313,000.

With an increase of 20,000, in the next census in 2001, the number of Roma grew to 370,000. With these rates, if someone claims that we will turn into a Roma nation, then this means that they are trying to cause tension in the country on the basis of ethnic intolerance. It is shameful that people who are thought to be serious and respectable sociologists tell us that three out of four children born in Bulgaria are Roma children. It is true that Roma women give birth more often, but it is also true that the Bulgarian women outnumber them. In the period 2001-2004, sixty out of a hundred newborn babies were Bulgarian, thirteen were Roma babies, thirteen Turks. For the rest, the data does not say how they defined themselves.

These are the data from the National Statistics Institute.

It is also true that the health status of the Roma people is very low. The average life expectancy in Bulgaria is five to nine years lower than that in EU countries. This indicator among the Roma in Bulgaria is several times lower than the average for the country.

Here we are not talking about some specific demographic policies, but about radical improvement of the health care in Bulgaria - prophylaxis, preventive medicine and active examination of diseases at an early stage, and of course, radical improvement in living conditions.

The situation is the same with the education system. Although we are in the era of information technology, education in most of the schools is terrible. In the larger scale, in the poor rural regions and the ghettos where more than 400,000 people live, an illiteracy has been born, raised and reproduced. Then what will the contribution of the illiterate people be for Bulgaria’s GDP? What will their personal strategies for survival be?

There is no ethnic problem connected with the demographic development. There is the problem of the ghettos. This problem exists in other countries as well.

The recent events in France, and the on a lesser scale in other countries in Western Europe, was the problem of the ghettos. Those people were not Roma. The disproportions should be overcome; 30 OBEKTIV

THE GHETTOS SHOULD BE DESTROYED BECAUSE THE GHETTO PRODUCES A SUBCULTURE. Nikola Cholakov: The problem is not so an ethnic or a religious one.

It is about the fact that in society there is stratification and fragmentation, which by chance has ethnic and religious dimensions. Because of this fragmentation, many Bulgarians, Roma and Turks simply slip out of the fabric of society.

Who authorised the building of Roma ghettos? Who allowed or forced the Turks to deal only in tobacco production, and who makes their living a monoculture one? All Bulgarian rulers! What will the Turks do when there is no market for tobacco? Some of them will go into construction, others will become bricklayers, but what about the women and children? I lived in the United States for four years, and I have never seen ghettos like the Roma ghettos in Bulgaria. You will find nothing like it, either in Harlem, or in the black neighbourhoods around Washington. In the United States there is not a single street without asphalt. No potholes, nothing. There is not a single building without electricity supply. There, the state is present in the ghettos, and exercises strict control.

The draft plan for implementing the demographic strategy says ·Funding - according to the budget”. But the budget is not compiled according to the strategy. How will the strategy be implemented without the required additional funds?

Mihail Ivanov: Now we enter the zone of populism and demagoguery. My biggest concern is that we would once again hide behind one big ·Hurrah”, doing nothing about problems which are very important to our society.

Nikola Cholakov: This is a standard wording. The state should first of all answer the question: why the death rate among children is so high, and second, why it has been registered in such a way? If a newborn baby under 1000 grams dies in the first five or six days of his life, it is registered as an abortion. According to the standard of the World Health Organisation, if a newborn baby, despite its weight, shows even one of the three elements: cardiac activity, breathing and muscle movement, it is registered as live born. In this way, in Bulgaria the infant death rate has been covered up and has been artificially lowered.

This approach, of making such strategies, plans and programmes by our administration, is completely wrong and wicked. If you take the present condition of the draft

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB plan, you will see activities from other areas - for example one from the work load area. The next thing is that some parts of other programmes will be copied and pasted into the plan. And all that in the framework of the state budget. They will be pleased to say that they have done something big on state policy on demographic issues.

Who from the executive branch of government will co-ordinate and be responsible for the implementation of the strategy?

Mihail Ivanov: Such a strategy should be coordinated by the Council of Ministers. What I see here in the current text of the strategy is institutional chaos We have the Directorate on Ethnic and Demographic Issues at the Council of Ministers, and at the same time we have the Directorate on Demographic Issues at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. They say that the Ministry will have the leading role and the co-ordinating and control function. However it is not clear yet what the Directorate at the Council of Ministers will do. The idea of co-ordination among systems of education, health care, social and regional policy is relinquished. When we talk about education and health care, lots of things get mixed up. When I was working for the administration of the Council of Ministers, I saw no such co-ordination of work. We are faced with the danger of the next chaos in our administration. At the session of the President’s Consultative Council, there was talk of engaging other ·actors”. The unions were present.

Employers and non-government organisations also should be included in the project.

Things in the administration of the executive branch of government are sealed as they are in a shell. When there is work on some text, the documents sent via email say: ·Present your corrections by tomorrow”. Then matters are taken up by the administrators without any discussion of the problems. This will not lead to a good result.

Nikola Cholakov: As a scientist, I would like to see demographic doctrine given by researchers in a loud voice in the public arena. If the state wants to have it in mind, all it needs to do is to take it. A university professor such as myself wants to see the very clearly the line between his own existence and that of the state. The problem regarding the balance of the population does not lie with the Roma or the Turks. The problem is that the number of people reaching retirement age is twice as much as those who are working. This means a double pressure on pension security. It seems to me that no one is thinking about this. If you look at the records of the National Statistics Institute, you will see that everything is perfect. What is the point, then, of talking about the balance of the population and its fragmentation?

Bulgaria’s economy will need an imported workforce, something that the West had in the 1950s and 1960s. In

Switzerland, there has always been a foreign workforce.

In Germany, there are about one million Turks. This will happen here and it must be foreseen. Scientists must make demographic prognoses for the next fifty years, for example. And if the state wants it, it can consider it.

Would our accession to the European Union increase the emigration of young and qualified people or it will decrease it?

Nikola Cholakov: Here we could and should make a human, not demographic prognosis. We will enter the European Union and many young people will want to pursue their happiness somewhere else. They are doing so already.

Mihail Ivanov: Some of the people who have left probably will return to Bulgaria, others probably will not.

A person lives only once and makes his or her own personal strategy. We are talking about a brain drain to the United States, Canada and Europe. I know many young people who would have taken the chance of staying in Bulgaria if there was any possibility for better options in the area of science here. Currently, the conditions for professional development of such people in Bulgaria are not good, but after our accession to the European Union, I believe that this will change.

The strategy envisages the achievement of a positive migration balance in 2015.

Will a flow of immigrants into Bulgaria increase xenophobia in Bulgaria?

Nikola Cholakov: It is a fact that in the past few years xenophobia has appeared in Bulgaria. I wonder where it came from.

I see that the project plan suggests that the immigrants would come mainly from the Bulgarian Diaspora abroad. It sounds a little bit too fantastic and not part of the issue at all. As a member of the European Union Bulgaria will become attractive for people from Asia, Africa who will use the country as a way to get to West Europe. What will we do then? What immigration policy will we conduct then? Are we going to give Bulgarian citizenship to every basketball player who comes to play in Bulgaria? All this should be taken in mind.

Mihail Ivanov: I think that xenophobia has been inflamed by some politicians, and this is something very dangerous. Some of these politicians are only aimed at attracting supporters by telling them that foreigners are to blame for all the problems in the country.

OBEKTIV 31