A decade ago or so I wrote: ‘If I were an Iraqi, I would rather immigrate to the US than to Europe.’

Would I I still say this? Possibly.

Caitlin L. Chandler writes in NYT about a detention center for immigrants in Bulgaria: ‘Now the most restrictive asylum policies in the bloc’s history are unfolding inside its borders.’

She adds: ‘The [EU and Bulgarian] officials tell them [refugees] they can leave if they sign an agreement to return to their home countries — Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. If they don’t, they will be locked up for a year and a half. At first, most refuse to sign, but it is hard to hold onto sanity in a Bulgarian cell when you have not committed a crime.’

The EU loves human rights? No, not in its periphery (Bulgaria for example), where everything is permitted, including negligence and a bit of torture.

(a sf 2053)