A video appeared in YouTube during the week that raised a public outcry. The video showed tough-looking young Bulgarians, not in uniform, yelling at three Afghan nationals prostrate on the ground in broken English: Go back to Turkey, now!, after having captured them crossing the Bulgarian border with Turkey illegally and tying their hands behind their backs. The group calls itself “Civilian detachment for the protection of women and the faith”. The video riveted public attention in Bulgaria and abroad causing world media to talk about inhumane treatment of migrants in Bulgaria.

Commenting on the incident Prime Minister Boyko Borissov stated that: “Any help for the border police and for the state is welcome,” putting his PR advisors in a panic – they hastily cautioned him to add that “the help must be within the bounds of the law.” Border police head Antonio Angelov hastened to say that: “This group’s actions are illegal, no person can be detained except by law enforcement authorities.” The incident was put an end to when prosecutor general Sotir Tsatsarov intervened to say that the leader of the vigilante gang, Petar Nizamov, AKA Perata had been detained and faced up to 6 years of imprisonment for unlawful detention of people.

Petar Nizamov is a name well known to the police for a variety of crimes. But what the video showed is no precedent. Another migrant hunter – Dinko from Yambol – also raised an uproar last month. Now vigilante groups along the border with Turkey seem to be multiplying - groups made up of criminals, repeat offenders, people from the underground who have added man hunting and migrant mugging to their other pastimes – larceny, kidnapping, drug trafficking and arms dealing.

But one question to prosecutor general Sotir Tsatsarov arises. Once the border police have captured a group of migrant crossing the border illegally, once the refugees seeking protection have been sifted from the rest – economic migrants or, God forbid, radical Islamists – do the laws of Bulgaria apply? Isn’t the fact they have crossed the border illegally pursued by the law?

“Knocking someone face down on the ground, tying his hands is not patriotism,” said Antoni Trenchev, MP from the Reformist Bloc for the Standart newspaper . “Bulgarian citizens have a duty to protect their fatherland,” said on his part Yulian Angelov, secretary of the parliamentary group of the Patriotic Front. The nationalist VMRO on its part offered vigilante groups free defence counsel.

Sadly, the existence of migrant hunting only demonstrates the incompetence of the authorities whose job it is to keep the peace and protect the state. Why? On the one hand evidently any formations, groups or detachments can mushroom in Bulgaria. I wouldn’t be surprised, when the season comes and I go mushroom picking in the forest, to find myself prostrated by a group calling themselves “Volunteer detachment for the protection of nature from mushroom pickers”. On the other hand the very existence of migrant hunting groups shows that the authorities are not in a capacity to protect the country’s borders efficiently. Not to mention the “heretical” theories, that these gangs are, in fact getting in the way of corrupt border police who have been selling “protection” to people traffickers and migrants.

Summer is not far away. There are fears of a rush of migrants towards Bulgaria across the border from Greece and from Turkey and the government sent the army to help the police in the border regions. Let us hope the summer won’t turn out too “hot”.

English version: Milena Daynova