Bulgarian Helsinski Committee

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Bulgarian Helsinski Committee
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Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

• The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee was established
  on 14 July 1992 as an independent
  non-governmental organisation for the protection
  of human rights. In 1993 it became a member of
  the International Helsinki Federation for Human
  Rights, which represents 46 independent human
  rights organisations in Europe, the former Soviet
  Union, and North America working together
  internationally to insist on compliance with
  human rights standards.

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Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

• The objectives of the committee are to promote
  respect for the human rights of every individual,
  to stimulate legislative reform to bring
  Bulgarian legislation in line with international
  human rights standards, to trigger public debate
  on human rights issues, to carry out advocacy for
  the protection of human rights, and to popularise
  and make widely available human rights
  instruments.

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Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

• The backbone of the committee's activities is
  systematic monitoring of the human rights
  situation in the country. It gives us information
  on the state and development of human rights in
  the country and supplies our legal defense
  program with cases of human rights violations for
  litigation before the domestic and international
  courts. In addition, the committee reports on
  human rights violations with a special emphasis
  on the rights of ethnic and religious minorities,
  refugees and asylum-seekers, rights of the child,
  protection from torture and ill-treatment,
  freedom of expression and association, problems
  of the criminal justice system.

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Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

• The BHC offers free legal help to the victims of
  human rights abuses. The committee also works in
  the sphere of human rights education, organizes
  conferences, workshops, public actions and other
  forms of public activities aimed at bringing the
  concept of human rights to the attention of the
  general public.

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Activities

• Below you will find information about the current
  activities of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.
  For a more detailed description of the activities
  in the framework of the programs, and for past
  activities, please see the annual activity
  reports.
• The main spheres of activities of the Bulgarian
  Helsinki Committee are monitoring the human
  rights situation in Bulgaria in several priority
  fields, pro bono legal assistance to victims of
  human rights violations, raising public awareness
  to human rights problems, and training in
  international human rights standards and
  protection mechanisms. The activities of the BHC
  are implemented in the framework of four main
  programmes and one legal protection project,
  carried out in partnership with MDAC

• Programme for Institutional Support of the BHC
• Legal Defence Programme
• Anti-discrimination Programme
• Project "AdvocAcy and Litigation on Behalf of
  People with Mental Disabilities"
• The project is carried out together with Mental
  Disability Advocacy Center, Budapest
• Requests for legal aid
• Closed Institutions Programme
• Refugees and Migrants Legal Protection Programme
• Programme for Protection of the Rights of
  Children in Institutions

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Activities

• On 18.12.2008 in SOU Bacho Kiro-Pavlikeni we
  had a meeting with the chairman of The
  Bulgarian-Helsinki Community -Mr. Krasimir Kunev.
  Some students from 10th, 11th and 12th grade took
  part in the meeting. The meeting was one part of
  the activities done in the project Open mind
  for active civil position for the programme
  Comenius. During the meeting Mr. Kunev told the
  students about the work of Bulgarian Helsinki
  Committee and spoke about different cases of
  violated human rights. He explained how the
  organization which he represents defends peoples
  rights which were broke in front of the European
  Judge in Strasburg. He spoke about all Bulgarian
  and International documents which talk about
  freedom of thought, information and expression.
  In fact this is something which students and
  teachers from our school work on. The chairman of
  the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, who is a lector
  of Philosophy at Sofia University, shared how the
  students are educated on the problems of human
  rights. At the end of the meeting the children
  understood that personal rights and freedom go
  hand in hand with responsibility, and if they
  want their rights to be preserved they have to
  respect the people around them and also to be
  tolerant of all people regardless of their sex,
  race, ethnicity, religion and etc.

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Activities