Activity Report January – December 2022 – Summary
BOLD Foundation pursued its purpose during 2022 and achieved significant results in promoting democracy and human rights in Bulgaria. The following activities were implemented:
1 Campaigns and Positions
In the report period, BOLD conducted regular members meetings approximately every two months at which it made decisions on campaigns, events, and positions on key issues of Bulgarian democracy. Highlights:
7 January 2022: In partnership with Foundation for Freedom Friedrich Naumann, BOLD launched a campaign aimed at speeding up covid vaccinations in Bulgaria. BOLD produced and spread six video messages in which medical experts in pulmonology, cardiology, nephrology, oncology, and endocrinology appealed to persons with certain underlying chronic conditions that put them at a very high risk of death or severe illness if infected with the covid virus. Starting within the project Monitoring Media Independence and Media Activity (see below), the campaign went far beyond planned project activities and had a certain impact on one of the most vulnerable and least vaccinated groups, combating the misinformation that had been widely circulated according to which persons with these underlying conditions should not be vaccinated.
31 January 2022: BOLD held a public event entitled “Did the Pandemics Rewrite the Limits of Rights?”, in partnership with the Culture Centre at the University of Sofia. November-December 2021: Campaigns on rights during pandemics and preparation of an event that took place in January 2022. The panel discussion brought together human rights and culture experts and was broadcast live on social media.
18 March 2022: BOLD publicized a position on the war in Ukraine, formulating ten recommendations to the international community; the position was covered extensively in the media.
7 June 2022: BOLD organized a roundtable discussion together with the Culture Centre of the University of Sofia, entitled “Rights Limitations in Times of War”, in which we covered a range of human rights in the context of the war in Ukraine. The event was also livestreamed on social media.
2 September 2022: On the launch of the official election campaign, we publicized an address to the political subjects competing in the October 2 parliamentary election; the address contained several demands and was broadly covered in the media.
18 November 2022: BOLD issued a position on a bill on foreign agents introduced in parliament by an ultra-nationalist party that would severely restrict civil liberties.
- Maintaining the organizational website, https://boldbg.net and regular communication with the BOLD members.
- Media outreach: we have published several articles in Bulgaria and abroad, and there have been several interviews with BOLD leaders during the report period on the political process, media freedom, the pandemic, etc.
2 BOLD Review
In 2022, BOLD published the first five issues of the e-magazine BOLD Review – in January 26, March 30, June 28, November 19, and December 29. Along with updates on BOLD’s work, the magazine offers a selection of high-quality materials that age well, collected for our subscribers from the best global sources. Each issue contained approximately 20 materials, including articles, video, and audio, in several languages.
3 Project “Monitoring Media Independence and Media Activity”
This project started on 1 April 2021 and completed on 31 March 2022. It was funded by the Bulgarian-American Commission for Educational Exchange.
This project has been implemented by BOLD based on a tripartite agreement of 4 August 2021 between the Bulgarian American Commission for Educational Exchange, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and Foundation BOLD.
The specific objectives of the project were to: (1) strengthen the monitoring of media freedoms and media quality through creating a network of 100 trained activists and involving them in regular media monitoring; (2) increase media literacy through a fact-checking task force of 10 people; (3) increase society’s resilience to conspiracy theories related to Covid-19.
Overall, BOLD achieved the project’s objectives, and exceeded most planned outcomes.
4 Project “Strategic Litigation for Vaccination Justice”
This project started in October 2021 and ends in June 2023. It is financed by Open Society Foundations. In this project, with Dimitrina Petrova as project leader, BOLD is a partner to BHC.
This project develops strategic litigation to establish that in the first half of 2021, the Bulgarian state has failed to protect from death from Covid-19 over 10,000 persons, primarily older people and people with certain medical conditions, who should have been prioritized for vaccination on account of their higher probability of dying from the disease compared to the general population. The project aims at court decisions, both at the national and international level, finding violations of the rights to life, health, and non-discrimination. The project seeks compensation for individual victims and improvement of legal doctrine on the positive obligations of the state to protect life and health and to ensure equal treatment without discrimination in the area of health. It contributes – more broadly – to developing the law regarding the just distribution of scarce health resources. Legal action under administrative and civil procedure is complemented by research and advocacy aimed at better legislation and policies on vaccination justice, and at raising public awareness of vaccination and health justice. The project’s communication plan targets key media, health professionals, and lawyers.
During 2022, good progress has been made towards achieving the general purpose – justice for the victims of unjust, unlawful, and unreasonable vaccination policy implemented by the government of Bulgaria. This purpose was pursued through strategic litigation, supported by legal and epidemiological research. Llitigation activities under this project have the general purpose to establish that the Bulgarian authorities have violated the rights to life, health, and non-discrimination of over 10,000 persons who have died from Covid-19 in the period between February and July 2021. Most of these people, who were over 65 and/or had one or more chronic medical conditions that put them at a much higher risk of dying from Covid-19 if infected, would not have died from the disease, had they been prioritized for vaccination against Covid-19, as they should reasonably have been, according to medical knowledge prevailing at the relevant time and the basic principles of justice. Several legal cases have been filed complaining against the national vaccination policy that had failed to protect from death the most vulnerable categories of persons – the elderly and those with certain underlying health conditions. Each case pursues a different strategy, under a different type of process: an individual complaint on behalf of relatives of covid victims filed against the government under administrative law procedure, contesting the lawfulness of the National Vaccination Plan; a case filed on behalf of the public interest represented by an NGO under civil law procedure, applying national anti-discrimination legislation; and a collective complaint against Bulgaria filed at the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe, alleging violations of several articles of the Revised European Social Charter. A case filed directly at the Supreme Administration Court has been unsuccessful, with the court refusing to establish the unlawfulness of the National Vaccination Plan. Other cases are pending.
In addition to legal cases, legal and epidemiological studies have been conducted to support both litigation and advocacy. Advocacy and communications have also begun but the main advocacy activities are planned for 2023.
5 Project “Building the Capacity of BOLD in the Face of New Challenges”
This project started on 1 August 2022 and will end on 31 July 2023. It is supported financially by the Active Citizen Bulgaria Fund.
The purpose of the project is to build the capacity of BOLD for a more effective response to new challenges created by the war in Ukraine. This project empowers BOLD to reset its priorities on issues resulting from the war in Ukraine as the war is a threat to democracy in Bulgaria and Europe. Through the project, BOLD is mobilizing citizen support for consistent Euro-Atlantic positioning of Bulgaria in the context of the war in Ukraine; identification and resistance to disinformation; and solidarity with people inside Russia who oppose the Putin regime. The project contributes to countering current challenges including: the risks of constructing the Bulgarian “national interest” in a way that undermines the country’s Euro-Atlantic orientation; the increased disinformation; the increased Russophobia. The project’s expected outputs are: influential policy positions and events of BOLD; regular multimedia messages including video, blogs, and articles, issued by a specially trained group of fact checkers; a conference on disinformation; publication of materials authored by Russian citizens opposing the war.
In September and November, BOLD published positions and on September 28 held the first in a series of panel discussions entitled Bulgarian Roads in the Shadow of War in which we reflected on the impact of the war in Ukraine on various aspects of Bulgarian politics, economy and society. The series envisages five thematic panel discussions under this overarching title.
Also in September, BOLD organized a two-day training on fact checking, for 12 participants, with a focus on identifying disinformation in the context of the war in Ukraine. A Facebook group with 34 participants was formed to work on countering disinformation, and we published three short videos and 6 articles on specific pieces of fake news related to the war. In the framework of this project, which has as one of its objectives to counter Russophobia, we identify materials authored by Russian opponents to Putin’s regime and publicize them in BOLD Review. We are also translating the most important materials to Bulgarian and are preparing two issues of an online bulletin to make them available to a broader Bulgarian reading audience.
