The nomination of Bulgarian Prisoners Rights Association (BPRA) founder Jock Palfreeman, an Australian anti-fascist imprisoned in Bulgaria, for the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee's Human of the Year award has faced a backlash from the media, right-wing politicians and neo-Nazi gangs that has forced his nomination to be withdrawn.
Bulgarian Prisoners Rehabilitation Association
The Bulgarian Prisoners Rights Association (BPRA) has made progress in its attempts to bring due process into Bulgaria's parole laws.
Founded in 2012, the BPRA has been represented on a Ministry of Justice working group on prison reform since May. Their representative is Valio Ivanov, who was released from Sofia Central Prison in February after serving 22 years — 20 in solitary confinement.
Ivanov succeeded in getting the working group to recommend changes in parole laws, BPRA chairperson Jock Palfreeman told Green Left Weekly.
The Bulgarian Prisoners' Rehabilitation Association (BPRA) won a victory on May 22 when it was invited to send a representative to a Ministry of Justice working group on prison reform.
The BPRA was founded in 2012 by Jock Palfreeman, an Australian anti-racist activist serving a 20-year sentence in Sofia central prison after he was framed for murdering a neo-Nazi. It is the first inmate-run prisoners' rights group in Bulgaria's history.