2024 RLLR 139
Citation: 2024 RLLR 139
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: February 6, 2024
Panel: Cristina De Leon
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Elnaz Dast Parvardeh
Country: Bulgaria
RPD Number: TC3-36689
Associated RPD Number(s): TC3-36692
ATIP Number: A-2025-00724
ATIP Pages: N/A
DECISION
[1] MEMBER: This is the decision in the claim for refugee protection made by the principal claimant, XXXX XXXX, hereinafter the PC, and the associate claimant, XXXX XXXX XXXX, hereinafter the AC, in RPD File Numbers TC3-36689 and TC3-36692. The claimants are citizens of Bulgaria and are claiming refugee protection pursuant to sections 96 and 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or IRPA.
ALLEGATIONS
[2] The allegations in support of the claim are set out in the claimant’s Basis of Claim forms marked as Exhibits 2.1 and 2.2. In summary, the claimants allege persecution in Bulgaria on the basis of their ethnic Roma identity.
DETERMINATION
[3] I find that the claimants are Convention refugees pursuant to section 96 of the IRPA as they face a serious possibility of persecution in Bulgaria on account of their Roma ethnicity. In making this determination, I have also considered and applied the Chairperson’s Guideline 4, gender considerations in proceedings before the IRB.
ANALYSIS
Identity
[4] The claimant’s personal and national identities as citizens of Bulgaria have been established on a balance of probabilities by their testimonies and photocopies of their Bulgarian passports included in the CBSA/IRCC claim referral package.
Nexus
[5] I find that the claims bear a nexus to the Convention ground of their race as persons of Roma ethnicity intersecting with their membership in a particular social group as women subject to threats of gender based violence. I have assessed their claims pursuant to section 96 of the IRPA.
Credibility
[6] Both the claimants testified in a detailed, spontaneous and straightforward manner with regard to the central elements of the claim and in a manner consistent with all the documents on the file, including their Basis of Claim forms and narratives. There were no material omissions or inconsistencies, which went to the core of the claims. They did not exaggerate or embellish any aspect of their testimonies. I find that both of the claimants were credible and trustworthy witnesses and believe what they have alleged in support of the claim. I also rely on the documents submitted by the claimants, including a medical document dated XXXX 2018 confirming that the PC was treated due to the acid splashed on her XXXX. I have also considered a letter from the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX and a membership certificate form from the XXXX XXXX confirming the Roma ethnicity. I have also considered a letter from VK, a resident of Canada who helped the claimants leave Bulgaria and settle in Canada. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of these documents, and as such, I place great weight on them in support of the claims. Based on the claimant’s credible testimony and the supporting documents, I accept that the claimants are Bulgarians of Roma ethnicity.
[7] The PC testified and I accept that they speak Bulgarian language with an accent and that this distinguishes them as Roma. She also testified, and I accept that they are known to be Roma because they lived in a segregated area for Roma in village XXXX in XXXX municipality. They both testified that in their school years, they experienced discrimination and verbal abuse. The PC was excluded from activities such as physical education. The AC was excluded from joining the dance team. They both complained to their teachers, who ignored them and did not do anything to protect them or stop the abuse. In the case of the AC, her teachers tasked her with heavier responsibilities.
[8] On October 31, 2014, the PC started working as a XXXX in a XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX. There, she was again socially ostracised and not allowed to join for coffee or lunch by her Bulgarian coworkers. After losing her XXXXjob or XXXX job at the XXXX, a person she knew, who was the former at the XXXX, PB, told her he would arrange for her to work at the XXXX as a XXXX on the condition that she paid him a portion of her salary on a regular basis. She agreed. There, a Bulgarian woman coworker became jealous of her and started insulting her and telling her to get out of the XXXX. The woman also threatened to make a report about her to make her lose her job. When the PC told the Bulgarian woman that she would report her to their superior, the woman threw an object into a basin filled with acid in front of her, splashing the acid on her body and her XXXX. The PC reported the matter to her supervisors, but she was told to keep quiet if she wanted to keep her job.
[9] In or about September 2020, while she was at work, the PC was taken by police officers to the police station and detained there for a day along with other Romas. A female police officer hit her, trying to make her confess her alleged participation in an arson that burned down a small church or chapel. When she returned to work, she was subjected to more harassment by her Bulgarian coworkers. In particular, her supervisor gave her extra work and gave her heavy jobs. In June 2022, the foreman, PB, asked her for more money to keep her working at the XXXX. When she refused, PB started asking her for sexual favours for himself and his friends. He told her that she was Roma and, that Roma people were well known for doing sexual favours for petty cash and that he did not see anything wrong with that. The foreman also threatened that, if the PC refused to do it, he would approach her daughter, the AC, for sexual favours. Due to the foreman, XXXX threats, the PC quit her job at the end of XXXX 2022.
[10] In July of 2022, she and the AC, her daughter started a small business XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in the XXXX village. Meanwhile, I also find that the AC, while in high school, was constantly pursued and harassed by N, who was a member of a group of skinheads. N tormented the AC and persistently followed her all the way home, grabbing and groping her. N would enter their house uninvited, would refuse to leave, and tell them he could do whatever he wanted to do. N told the AC that, as a Roma, she had no other choice, that he was her only Bulgarian suitor and threatened to take her and sell her as a slave. The claimants reported N to the police, but the police officers told them that the Roman are known to lie and that they had just fabricated it, and it was the AC’s fault because her demeanour was such as to instigate such treatment from N. I find that, when the claimants told N that they had spoken to the police in an attempt to scare him, N became very agitated and said she would not be able to run away from him and he would sell her abroad and make money.
[11] In July of 2022, the claimants started operating their small business, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXin the village of XXXX. I accept that the mayor of the XXXX municipality refused to give them a permit because he discriminated against Romas. Operating without a permit, the claimants became easy prey for local skinheads who extorted protection money from them for the right to sell illegally. I also find, on a balance of probabilities, that on the last weekend of July 2022, N appeared at the market with his usual group of skinheads. He approached their stall and he said that he well remembered their complaint and there was no way for the AC to avoid working for him. He also said that in revenge, he would arrange an orgy with her. This incident crystallised the claimant’s fear in Bulgaria.
[12] On August 1, 2022, they relocated to Plovdiv, where they stayed with a friend, XXXX, also of Roma ethnicity. While the AC stayed with XXXX in Plovdiv, the PC left for Canada on XXXX XXXX, 2022, to see whether Canada was a safe and friendly country for them. She returned to Bulgaria on XXXX XXXX, 2022, and having decided to move to Canada, they started saving money for the trip. The claimants experienced two (2) more incidents before they finally left for Canada on XXXX XXXX, 2022. I find that sometime in September of 2022, the claimant or the PC was among a group of Roma on the street when a crowd of skinheads and nationalists in black T-shirts with the national flag emblem attacked them, beating them with iron pipes and bats while shouting, “Bulgaria is for Bulgarians.” They pulled the PC’s hair and knocked her to the ground, and she managed to escape. Another incident happened around mid September, 2022. Both the claimants were walking toward L’s house or toward XXXX house, when someone started firing a handgun at a group of Romas, which had scattered in the shooting. The claimants decided to relocate again, this time to the town of XXXX, where they stayed with another Roma friend until their departure from Bulgaria on XXXX XXXX, 2022.
Subjective Fear
[13] Based on the credible testimonies corroborated by the documentary evidence, I find that the claimants have established their ethnicity as Roma on a balance of probabilities and, further, that they have established that they have suffered harassment, discrimination, extortion, violence including gender-based violence, and threats of rape, kidnapping, and being trafficked as prostitutes on the basis of their Roma ethnicity intersecting with their gender as women. I find that their lived experiences as Roma women in Bulgaria subjected to such harassment, discrimination, and violence were serious, systemic, and repetitive and that they cumulatively amount to persecution. I find that the claimants have established their subjective fear based on a balance of probabilities.
Objective Basis
[14] The objective basis at Item 13.1 of the NDP describes a wave of anti-Gypsysm manifested in anti-Roma rhetoric, including hate speech by high-level public officials, racially motivated attacks on Roma, anti Roma riots, and forced evictions conducted under public pressure. Item 13.1 states that systematic public instigation to hatred and discrimination against Roma has led to periodic outbursts of intolerance against Roma. Several criminal incidents involving Roma in recent years have escalated to collective punishment actions by non-Roma citizens against entire Roma neighbourhoods. Item 13.6 confirms that Roma in Bulgaria are the most frequently attacked ethnic group in Bulgaria. Item 13.7 indicates that Roma in Bulgaria face discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and education. The level of residential segregation is high, which is also reflected in employment and public service segregation. It is stated that the Roma minority is suffering from several principal forms of social exclusion, including bad education, lack of employment, bad health services, and the impossibility of women to be engaged socially.
[15] Item 13.7 describes the marginalisation of the Romani minority as Bulgaria’s most pressing human rights problem. It further indicates that the media describes Roma using discriminatory and abusive language, and that extreme nationalist parties such as Ataka and the Patriotic Front based their political campaigns on strong anti-Roma slogans and rhetoric. Item 13.15 states that in both the public and political spheres, violent anti-Roma attitudes are widely expressed and accepted. Evidently, in 2011, following the implication of a Roma crime boss in the murder of a Bulgarian man, crowds of protesters across the country chanted “Gypsies into soap,” a reference to the holocaust practise of manufacturing soap from the corpses of concentration camp victims. Further, in 2017, Bulgarian Member of the European Parliament and vice chairman of the nationalist IMRO, I-M-R-O, party left a Facebook comment beneath a photo of a group of Roma men that read “euthanasia” and Bulgaria’s own prime minister, Boyko Borisov, has been quoted as labeling the Roma “bad human material.” I find that there is cogent objective basis for the claimant’s objective fear of discrimination and ill treatment in Bulgaria, and I find that their fear is well-founded.
State Protection
[16] The objective evidence in Item 13.6 indicates that police arrest suspects for minor offences and physically abuse them to force confessions, especially in cases involving Romani suspects, and evidently, investigations into police violence were neither effective nor comprehensive. This is consistent with the PC’s experience of violence at the hands of the police on the unfounded accusation that she participated in arson. The objective evidence also indicates that there is a concern among human rights organisations regarding excessive use of force by police toward ethnic minorities, as well as the lack of an independent mechanism to investigate these allegations. According to the Amnesty International report, some of the officials who were interviewed expressed biased views toward Roma and their entrenched prejudice against minorities that limit their ability or willingness to effectively investigate allegations of hate crimes.
[17] Similarly, Al Jazeera cites a sociologist and researcher on migration and human rights issues as stating that, when individuals from marginalised groups in Bulgaria, such as the Roma, file reports with the police, it is not unusual for the authorities to treat them with disregard and to refuse to register the crime. The objective evidence confirms the claimant’s experience of attempting to file a complaint against N, only to be told that they were fabricating it all and that the AC was to blame for her demeanour that was said to attract such behavior from N. Item 2.1 indicates that the criminal justice system targets Roma persons disproportionately for persecution, denying them of equal protection under the law, including not investigating hate crimes. And further, the objective evidence indicates that Roma persons faced instances of abuse from the police and state authorities. I find that the claimants have established past experiences with the police where protection was not forthcoming or where their police themselves were the agents of persecution consistent with the objective evidence. I find that the claimants have rebutted the presumption of state protection with clear and convincing evidence. Therefore, I find that state protection would not be available to the claimants in Bulgaria.
Internal Flight Alternative
[18] Based on the objective country conditions evidence and the claimant’s experiences, I find that there is systemic discrimination, pervasive hate speech and, hate crimes and violence against Roma throughout Bulgaria amounting to persecution. Therefore, I find that there is no viable Internal Flight Alternative for the claimants in Bulgaria.
CONCLUSION
[19] Having considered the totality of the evidence, I find that the claimants face a serious possibility of persecution in Bulgaria on the basis of their Roma ethnicity intersecting with their membership in a particular social group as women at risk of gender-based violence. Therefore, I find that the claimants, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX, are Convention refugees pursuant to section 96 of the IRPA. The claims for refugee protection are, therefore, accepted.
——— REASONS CONCLUDED ———