ECO protests and police arbitrariness

ECO PR

by Svilen OVCHAROV THEN...

Do you remember how perestroika started in 1988? And what turn being a dissident took in 1989? Unlike other former socialist camp countries, ”glasnost” first announced the ecological problems at home.

Of course, there were political goals in the centre relating to more freedom and change of the system hiding behind the seemingly harmless green cause, especially following Todor Zhivkov’s ”July concept”. But there was more - the environment and the health of Bulgarians were the most damaged during the socialist period. The totally militarised economy, the obsolete technologies in industry, the lack of any understanding or knowledge whatsoever on the part of those in power, their inhumane and inadequate response to health and environmental problems have led small Bulgaria to the severest ecological problems in the whole Eastern Block. Kremikovtsi, the Non-ferrous Metals Smelter in Plovdiv, the Maritza-East Complexes, and air pollution in Ruse and so on had fed intellectuals’ discontent. The last straw was the inadequate and inhumane behaviour of the ruling class following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The first dissident groups were some rudiments of green movements and ecologist organisations such as the Public Committee for Protection of Ruse, Ecoglasnost, ”Green Balkans”, etc. Toward the end of 1989, OSCE held an ecological conference in Sofia around which these organisations held protests, put up posters and slogans, and the police were up and running. People were arrested and spent several days locked up.

Gradually the green idea began to be seen by the nomenclature as a serious threat for their power and influence.

Meaning their economic power and influence following 1990...

AND NOW...

What is civil activity on ecological issues now, 18 years later? And what is the state’s response? Toward the end of

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2006 serious tension was building up between environmentalists and the state. Back then it was obvious that there were three break points where the escalation of the conflict seemed inevitable.

The first one were the laws, the quasi-laws*, or the totally illegal inert material quarries, and open mines, etc. I will just highlight the investment intentions for gold mining by means of cyanides in the village of Popintsi and Krumovgrad; the illegal quarry near the village of Studena (district of Pernik) without any concession whatsoever on the part of the state; the quarry near Malko Tarnovo within the territory of the Strandzha natural preserve; the Maritza-Iztok complexes, and, finally, the dry and dusty tailings pond poisoning the whole of Kardzhali, against which the regional Nov Zhivot (New Life) newspaper is campaigning fiercely with the help of the national media.

The second neurotic point is the delay and swindles in determining the NATURA 2000 sites for Bulgaria. This is a commitment linked to our EU accession the deadline for which was 1 January 2007. Besides, the two EC directives - one for birds and the second for habitats, envisage a single criterion for the inclusion of any European area into the European Ecological Network NATURA 2000, and that is the scientific criterion. According to the directives, the presence of economic, social, or corrupt considerations is totally irrelevant and immaterial. The social and economic criteria may be taken into account at the further determining of the level of protection of the respective area from the national government. However, because of hotels, wind generators, water power plants, careers and the like of some political sponsors, the administration is delaying the procedure; the deadline was missed, and in the end only half the sites suggested by scientists got into the list of sites under the network.

The third point of conflict is the illegal construction on the Black Sea coast and around the mountain resorts. This is chaotic, lacking planning or tourist strategy as well as aestheticism or consideration of the landscape; there is no sewerage system, and it is blocking people’s access to the tourist resources and endangering the natural environment. Some such sites are built at apparent economic loss which is a clear * With an EIA or following a doubtful EIA carried out by corrupt experts.

ROTESTS AND POLICE ARBITRARINESS indicator of money laundering. Society is well aware of the existence of titanic corruption among the administration, even of its exact size, rates, and protagonists, etc. On this issue, environmentalists received huge support by society - people across all occupations, educational levels, and culture supported the protests and/or took a stand against illegal construction. A strange but valuable ally emerged in the face of the Bulgarian pseudo-intellectuals who, again, saw the portents for the arrival of their Godot, namely the so called ”nascent civil society”.

The game started on Thursday 15 February 2007, at one of the regular Council of Ministers sessions. Sometime in the afternoon, through some strange and unaccounted for information channels, it became clear to the public that the sore problem of Natura 2000 has already been resolved albeit after the EU set deadline and namely that the Council of Ministers has accepted a list of the areas in the network, well, a very short one. Barely half of the scientific proposals and groundings had been approved, and even a perfunctory glance at the list of those deferred revealed the corruptive selection criterion. The first Saturday saw the spontaneous idea for a civil protest with different people suggesting variants. In the end, using the Internet and other informal information channels, a pyjama Websites for the protests: walk of the www.nabludatel.info ”environhttp://nabludatel.blogspot.com/search/ mentally label/ïðîòåñò mental” www.savestrandja.ludost.net was anwww.saverila.ludost.net nounced to http://www.optimiced.com/bg/ take place http://forthenature.org in pedeshttp://www.daspasimirakli.com/ trian areas http://www.bluelink.net/ only, including subways, zebra crossings (at green lights), etc. with the participation of 50 to 100 people. In the end, a smaller group was blocked by a police line on San Stefano Street - a pedestrian area - without explanation. There was not a loudspeaker or any other means of informing the demonstrators that they were to disperse. Three of the participants who wanted to know why they were not allowed to pass, or stated that they had the right to pass, were detained. A fourth person was arrested while talking on his mobile phone aside from the crowd and the police line. All four were handed fine tickets for failure to follow police orders, orders which were never given. The detention orders contained a quotation from the ”relevant” sections of the Ministry of Interior Law, and the detention grounds were listed as: having been duly requested, the person consciously hindered the police in performing their official duties”.

On 2 July more than 2 thousand people blocked the Orlov Most (Eagles Bridge) juncture, then the Blue Café area. Police arrived 10 minutes later but did not address the protesting crowd. Soon the latter freed the road. Five minutes earlier, 37 participants were detained, 4 of them minors. Obviously, this was a random selection and there were even passers-by

among the arrested. The same motives were put down as grounds for detainment. This, however, did not stop the MI press centre from slandering the detainees the very next day in the traditional way, namely by insinuations of criminal record. This information was completely untrue but, most of all, irrelevant, and the police had no right to announce it in public. The attempt to discredit citizens and whitewash police actions was obvious.

The protests were not announced to the public, the county was not always aware, and the information reached potential participants via the internet, text messages or word-ofmouth. Soon afterwards the police summoned the blogger Michel Bozgunov for interrogation with regard to why he was distributing details of said protests. This provoked overall indignation and was abandoned.

On 29 August a large group of young people built a cardboard hotel complex on the zebra crossing at Rakovska and Racho Dimchev Streets. The police were not in the way; on the contrary, they even guarded “the construction site” against any encroachment. Two hours later the environmentalists had to clean it up themselves, which was not exactly part of the plan. Mr Stoyan Beshkov, senior research fellow and head of the insects department at the Natural History Museum with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was detained while watching the protesters with his two dogs. He kicked a couple of bricks out of the road after the traffic was restored, which was misinterpreted by the police, who brutally detained him.

The research worker only agreed to ID himself if shown official IDs of the police officers, following Ministry of Interior Law, and, subsequently, refused to let go of his dogs. Because of that he was dragged to the ground and in the end detained along with his quadruped companions. It should be said that the police officers paid heed to a previous wrist trauma of the scientist and did not use handcuffs.

Apparently this was about expression and use of the right to peaceful gathering and the right to expressing political opinion. International standards in the field of human rights, and more specifically OSCE documents, acknowledge as defendable even a person’s right to a spontaneous protest without prior notice to the local authorities, in cases of urgent occasions and if not causing too much inconvenience to fellow-citizens.

The police have been applying a double standard with regard to environmentalists. The taxi drivers held a protest meeting blocked three central junctures during the whole of 9 February 2007 at Narodno Sabranie Square, Tzar Osvoboditel Blvd, and the square in front of Sofia University and Orlov Most juncture. The taxi drivers held a protesting meeting and a demonstration as defined by the Law on Gatherings, Meetings, and Manifestations without prior notification to the city council, and accompanied by extreme violations of public order and civil peace. They did not notify the council within the required period but none of them received any police orders that day or were arrested. Kalin Medarov, Chairman of the Managing Board of the Bulgarian Society for Individual Freedom, is suing the Sofia Council for the taxi drivers’ protest on 9 February earlier this year, as per a press-notice of the Sofia Regional Court of 26 February 2007.

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