His business is people. And “Harry,” dressed in casual shirt and wearing a big smile, says he is prepared to find a child for a shady British entrepreneur willing to pay 60,000 euros.

But the sales pitch captured on television by undercover British journalists has done more than add to Bulgaria’s reputation as a center for human trafficking. It has exposed deepening concern about the treatment of journalists by the Interior Ministry in Bulgaria, a country that joined the European Union this year.

“Harry” was later identified by the police as Hasan Ahmed Hasan, a 39-year-old Bulgarian from the Black Sea resort city of Varna. He confesses on hidden camera that he is an experienced human trafficker and that he would be able to help the Briton – who claims to have a criminal record that bars him from legal adoption – buy a child and then transport it to the United Kingdom. Hasan even showed photographs and introduced children to his would-be client.

Officials at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which aired the report in July, defended the set-up, saying their reporting shows that human trafficking and organized crime remain problems in Bulgaria despite EU pressure for a crackdown. The BBC also said it informed the police of what happened in their investigation and never gave “Harry” money.

“This is a brilliant report which exposes a very serious problem and the police in Bulgaria should investigate this properly,” says Craig Oliver, editor of Ten O'Clock News, the BBC program that aired the child-trafficking report.

The Varna police questioned Hasan and two associates about what transpired on television, then released them on the grounds there was no evidence to prosecute.

The journalists were not so lucky.

Soon after Hasan and the two others were released, Varna police commissioner Vesselin Petrov said the BBC's investigation was biased and that the journalists had entrapped Hasan by offering him money, an offense that carries a prison sentence of up to a year. Later, Varna district deputy prosecutor Stefka Jakimova confirmed that an investigation was under way.

Although no one has been charged, the Interior Ministry identified two British men, Dominic Hipkins and Paul Samrai, as BBC freelancers. A ministry press release disclosed their passport numbers, other personal information, and claimed they had both been charged with crimes in Britain.

The BBC has not confirmed the identities of the men. The BBC investigation was reported by Sangita Myska from the Ten O'Clock News.

RUN-INS WITH THE LAW

This is not the first time the Interior Ministry and the national police service that it supervises have had brushes with the BBC and other news media.

Last year, the government apologized to several Bulgarian journalists after Interior Minister Rumen Petkov falsely accused them of collaborating with the communist-era secret police in the 1970s.

In 2004, Romanian ProTV reporter George Buhnici was arrested for using a hidden camera at a Bulgarian-Romanian border crossing while he was investigating illegal cigarette trafficking between the two countries. He was found guilty of violating the law banning the use of a concealed device to record information. Last year, a Bulgarian appellate court dropped the charges.

“I do not want to recall the times I was treated as a criminal,” Buhnici said recently. “The most important thing is that I am not guilty and my case has set a precedent which is helping investigative journalists in Bulgaria.”

Also in 2004, the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt used a hidden camera to catch the chief of Bulgaria’s Olympic Committee saying he was open to negotiating a price for his vote for the host city of the 2012 Olympic Games. Rowlatt was investigating reputed corruption in the Olympic site-selection process.

The Bulgarian prosecutor's office accused the journalist of entrapment, initiation of bribe-taking, and violating the law against concealed recording. The government later dropped the case amid a huge public outcry.

Rowlatt would not comment on the incident, citing the “sensitivity” of the new accusations against the BBC over the child-trafficking report.

OTHER THREATS

Media freedom monitors cite other challenges to free expression and access to information, including investigative reporters facing threats for the work they do. In one of the more serious cases, a bomb destroyed the home of Nova TV’s Vasil Ivanov, who is known for his investigations of organized crime. Ivanov was unhurt in the April 2006 blast, but a family member narrowly escaped.

In May, dozens of media-rights groups signed a letter urging the Bulgarian parliament to scrap legislation they argue would weaken the country’s freedom of information law enacted as part of the country’s efforts to meet EU standards. Parliament did back down on some contentious amendments to the law.

Media advocates see the reponse to the BBC trafficking report as a throwback to communist times, when the government would discredit the reports of foreign journalists by claiming they were spies for Western governments.

“Who would like to investigate here after the latest events,” says Ognyan Zlatev of the Media Development Center in Sofia. “Foreign journalists should be warned now – once you disclose something which the Bulgarian Interior Ministry thinks is wrong, you will wake up the next morning with a personal file made public.”

Zlatev says the ministry’s reaction to the report is an attempt to draw away the attention from the real problem – human trafficking and organized crime.

A 2006 U.S. State Department report on human rights in Bulgaria identified trafficking as a “serious problem.” The Danish Red Cross has identified Bulgaria as a major source for the trafficking of prostitutes into Europe, and the EU pressured both Romania and Bulgaria to take tougher measures to stem illegal trafficking during negotiations for entry into the bloc.

Mihail Ekimdjiev, a lawyer at the Association for European Integration and Human Rights, says he is not surprised by the Interior Ministry's reaction to media coverage on trafficking. “Everyone knows about child trafficking in Bulgaria and it is clear that the ministry could not cope with the problem. Instead of showing respect to the journalists, who have disclosed a crime, the ministry uses its resources against them,” Ekimdjiev says.

Ekimdjiev called the release of the BBC freelancers’ personal data a “heavy violation” of the country’s data protection law. He says they could ask for compensation through the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

The British broadcaster says the baby-smuggler report followed strict editorial guidelines. Oliver says the police commissioner, Petrov, “made it sound as if we behave in a dishonest way, while in fact we have not. Our journalists put themselves in significant danger in exposing this case and it is very upsetting to have a police officer querying on what we did without properly investigating the case.”

The Interior Ministry’s press office declined to comment.

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