The naked searches in “Bushido”! For the USA – a drastic violation of human rights, in Bulgaria – everything is correct

Whatever happens in Plovdiv, stays in Plovdiv! At least as far as the actions of the Plovdiv police are concerned, if we paraphrase the well-known expression about what is happening in Vegas. A year ago, on St. George’s Day, 400 customers of the Plovdiv discotheque “Bushido” were stripped, searched and humiliated during an action by the Ministry of Internal Affairs – Plovdiv. The justifications for this nefarious operation ranged from a routine check to a tip-off about drug trafficking. Despite the scale of the “jewelry” action, in the entire huge club, whose capacity is nearly 1,200 people, a single packet containing 0.5 g was found. amphetamine!

There followed protests by people from the industry and demands for punishment of the police chiefs who ordered the shameful action. Under public pressure, a review did begin, but given the results, it was clearly pro forma.

The inspection of the “Inspectorat” Directorate, commissioned by the Acting Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Demerdzhiev, found evidence of violations of six police officers in the city, led by the then chief Vasil Kostadinov and the head of the “Criminal Police” sector, Georgi Tashev. The latter received a disciplinary punishment of “reprimand” for a period of one year, which, however, he refused to accept and appealed it in court.

During the course of the trial, the administrative court decided that this punishment was “disproportionate to the violation for which Georgi Tashev is accused” and mostly for formal reasons it becomes invalid. They state that the senior police officer was not heard according to the established order, his written explanations were not accepted, which is a violation of the Law on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is a sufficient reason for canceling the order.

And things died down. None of the leaders in the Ministry of Internal Affairs took responsibility for what happened. The then Acting Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev stated that he was not informed at all about the inspection, the Chief Secretary Petar Todorov also did not take responsibility, although it was an open secret in the Regional Directorate that the action was carried out on his verbal order. The director of the police, Vasil Kostadinov, transferred the responsibility to the head of the operation, etc. And so, despite the scale of the scandalous action, despite the protests, despite the comments of famous human rights defenders, there were neither guilty nor punished. The Ministry of Internal Affairs probably took a breather, closing another page of human rights violations that have been escalating and multiplying in recent years. In short – everything is correct!

However, the US State Department’s annual report on the state of human rights in our country for 2023 shows that we have again exposed ourselves to foreigners. The case in “Bushido” is not only not forgotten, but is noted in the report as “one of the most extreme cases of excess of rights” by the police. Many will probably say that over there beat the niggers but Bulgaria has ratified a number of international documents and has undertaken to implement them. Their violation does not go unnoticed at all and reports are read carefully by international agencies and affect foreign investment in the country.