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Human Rights Developments Defending Human Rights The Role of the International Community Defending Human RightsHuman rights groups, including the Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights (BLHR), the Human Rights Project (HRP), and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) remained active. The Bulgarian human rights community was particularly active on issues related to the rights of the Roma minority and undertook numerous initiatives to protect their rights. On October 3, 1998, the HRP sponsored a meeting between representatives of the Bulgarian government, Roma and other human rights NGOs, and the international community to disucss equal paricipation of Roma in Bulgarian society. The BLHR, supported by the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), argued before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of a Roma applicant in Assenov v. Bulgaria, which challenged Bulgarias provision of a remedy for allegations of police brutality. The case is currently pending. In April, in connection with the case of Assenov v. Bulgaria, the ERRC released the results of a six-year study of Bulgarian attitudes toward and official treatment of Roma. The survey revealed severe prejudice against Roma, especially among law enforcement officials and state-owned media. Among other things, the survey emphasized that fourteen Roma men had been killed or last seen alive in police custody since 1992, and there had been only two convictions among the very few cases brought against police for violence committed against Roma. It also underscored the inability of Roma victims to obtain a remedy for ill-treatment and the fact that Roma make up the overwhelming majority of the Bulgarian prison population. Other human rights initiatives in Bulgaria included a project designed to provide legal counsel to those detained by the police and efforts to educate Bulgarian societyabout human rights and minority issues. |
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