Row Deepens over Citizen's Arrests of Migrants in Bulgaria

Video footage showing the detention of migrants in Southern Bulgaria done by volunteer squads has added to controversy in a country divided over the treatment of migrants trying to cross its borders.

The footage purportedly shows three men, supposedly from Afghanistan, lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs.

It was first published on Facebook by a "Joseph Louis Barrow" with a comment reading: "DETENTION OF MIGRANTS AND RETURN TO TURKEY... No 112 [emergency hotline], no police traitors. We are acting on our own!"

Prosecuting authorities in the town of Malko Tarnovo, a municipality in Burgas region next to the border with Turkey, have launched pretrial proceedings over what they believe is a case of unlawful detention, which under Bulgaria's Criminal Code is punishable by up to six years behind bars.

Interior Rumyana Bachvarova has also criticized the actions shown in the video, writing on Facebook authorities now have to be wary "not only of those illegally crossing the borders but also of those willing to abuse them. Either for money or for cheap and dangerous fame."

A blunt response has followed even from NFSB, one of the parties of the Patriotic Front, a nationalist coalition backing the government, with its leader Valeri Simeonov calling the volunteers "brigades of mutri" only seeking profit by stealing migrants' belongings and taking part in smuggling schemes. ("Mutri" is a reference to members of organized criminal gangs that were at the center of waves of violence in Bulgaria in the 1990s and early into the next decade).

The development has also marked a shift in the rhetoric of authorities on voluntary patrols along the border, a recent phenomenon that had initially been...