CAT/C/62/D/721/2015 access to housing and still less to medical care. His removal would thus breach article 16 of the Convention, even if he were not detained. 5.8 The complainant contests the State party’s assertion that he has not presented any specific evidence to demonstrate that Bulgaria does not respect the principle of nonrefoulement. In fact, the deficiencies of the Bulgarian asylum system are well known, including the lack of interpreters and other staff during registration and at hearings, 26 the lack of adequate legal representation and the failure to provide sufficient information on the status of cases.27 It is thus by no means guaranteed that the complainant will have access to an equitable asylum procedure that respects the principle of non-refoulement. As stated in the European Council on Refugees and Exiles Research Note, in Bulgaria, access to an equitable asylum procedure is available only in theory. Furthermore, the complainant has cited official Bulgarian statistics demonstrating a 91 per cent rejection rate for applications from non-Syrian asylum seekers. More specifically, he emphasizes that the rejection rate for Afghans was 94 per cent in 2015. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee has confirmed that applications from Afghan asylum seekers are overwhelmingly rejected. Lastly, with regard to the risk of chain refoulement, it is important to note that, in May 2016, Bulgaria ratified a readmission agreement with Turkey, under which Turkey is obliged to take back persons who have entered Bulgaria irregularly from Turkey. No information is available on the application of this agreement, but it is not inconceivable that the complainant will be expelled to Turkey, the country through which he travelled before entering Bulgaria. 5.9 Concerning the risk of ill-treatment in Bulgaria, the State party does not dispute that the living conditions in Bulgarian detention centres must be characterized as degrading. According to the State party, the complainant is not at risk of being detained again if transferred to Bulgaria and his risk of being subjected to ill-treatment in the context of detention is therefore not examined in the State party’s observations. The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, after visiting Bulgaria in February 2015, criticized the fact that asylum seekers in Bulgaria were routinely and unlawfully placed in detention, described the living conditions in detention as substandard and denounced instances of illtreatment in the detention centres.28 5.10 The complainant disputes the State party’s analysis, which fails to acknowledge that he is especially vulnerable and according to which he has not shown that his living conditions in Bulgaria would be “so difficult or harsh” as to constitute treatment contrary to article 1 of the Convention or article 16. He argues that he must be considered a vulnerable asylum seeker, given that he suffered ill-treatment in Bulgaria in the past, requiring him to receive psychiatric treatment in Switzerland. 5.11 The State party’s assertion that “at no stage of the asylum procedure in Switzerland did the complainant refer to any ill-treatment suffered in Bulgaria” and that it was “only in the complaint addressed to the Committee that he claims to have been subjected to various abuses on the part of State officials” is inaccurate and is contradicted by the documents on file, which show that the complainant did submit that he had been tortured during his detention in Bulgaria and had also endured inhuman and degrading conditions. During his summary hearing at the reception and processing centre in Basel, he made the following statements: “I was in prison for a year in Bulgaria. I experienced much torture (‘Viel 26 27 28 10 See AIDA, Bulgaria Country Report; and the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, Weekly data collection on the situation of persons in need of international protection, Update 5, 26–30 October 2015 (http://bit.ly/1KQWp1S). See also UNHCR Bulgaria, Aktualisierte Antworten auf Fragen von UNHCR Deutschland im Zusammenhang mit Überstellungen nach dem Dublin-Verfahren, June 2015, p. 3. See “Bulgaria’s jailing and criminalisation of refugees is ‘inhumane’, says UN” (www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/un-bulgaria-refugee-crisis-inhumane-jailingprosecuting-a7185501.html). See the report by Nils Muižnieks. See also the September 2016 report of the European Programme for Integration and Migration and the Center for Legal Aid — Voice in Bulgaria, Who Gets Detained? Increasing the transparency and accountability of Bulgaria’s detention practices of asylum seekers and migrants. GE.18-04727