Human rights news: October 2001
| Wednesday, 31 October 2001 |
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TOLERANCE
FOUNDATION Bulgaria: High government official declares US criticism toward Bulgaria for religious freedom violations "groundless"
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On October 26, 2001 the US State Department disseminated its annual International Religious Freedom Report. The next day the state owned Bulgarian National Television informed the public by its main newscast about the chapter of the report on Bulgaria. The report quoted the main points of the report. Among others, the report states in its summary that: "The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the Government restricts this right in practice for some non-Orthodox religious groups. These restrictions are manifested primarily in a registration process that is selective, slow, and nontransparent. The Government prohibits the public practice of religion by groups that are not registered." The criticism expressed in the report toward the policy of the Bulgarian Government in the sphere of the religious freedom is rather soft. For example, the report does not mention anything about one of the severest violations of the religious freedom: the expelling of the Muslim Mr. Ahmad Musa, a Jordanian national, head of the Bulgarian branch of the Kuwaiti Social Reform Foundation [1]. The situation with the restitution of the church property was described too hurriedly while in fact it is much worse than mentioned in the report[2]. Despite this, the highest state official in the sphere of religion Mr. Lubomir Mladenov, Chief of the Religious Directorate of the Council of Ministers stated in the same TV broadcast that "the report is written with bias and contains there are groundless assertions in it." He also stated that "only a few religious communities that apply before the state for registration have not received such one yet." He added that only the Unification Church and the Church of the Nazarene have not received recognition by the state, but forgot to mention that the former has brought a lawsuit against Bulgaria before the ECHR and that the latter has been trying to get recognition for over six years. Moreover he did not mention that the Roma Church in Lom has also brought a law-suit before the ECHR because of its non-recognition by the state. He also did not mention that the draft Denomination Act that has been very strongly criticized by the Council of Europe [3] was created mainly in his Directorate. Instead of all of these he stated that 'there is a full religious freedom in Bulgaria'. Early today the statements of the Director of the Directorate on the Religious Affairs Mr. Lubomir Mladenov were repeated also by Mr. Krasteff, a deputy Chief of the same office who spoke by the Bulgarian National Radio. These assertions show again that the deep attitudes of the main part of the Bulgarian ruling elite are against the enlargement of the scope of the religious freedom in Bulgaria. Their reluctance continues and after the General elections that was held on June 17, 2001. For example, the first draft that was tabled into the Parliament by Mr. Borislav Tzekov, MP by the National Movement 'King Simeon the second' (a political coalition, leaded by the former Bulgarian king that won the June's elections) was on the religion matters. The draft was criticized by human rights groups as a restrictive one. Last week Mr. George Purvanov, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the former communist party) who is a candidate for the office of President of the Republic (the presidential elections will be held on November 11th) stated his party will introduce again into the National Assembly their draft Denominations Act that is extremely similar to the draft that has been sharply criticized by the Council of Europe. Tolerance Foundation calls on the Bulgarian ruling elite to listen to the international criticism and to take measures in order to harmonize its policy in the sphere of the re-ligious freedom with the international human rights standards. On behalf of Tolerance Foundation: Emil
Cohen, President Footnotes: 1
He was announced as 'a danger of the national security' and on August
8, 2000 he was expelled. Mr. Musa lived in Bulgaria from 1984 until 2000;
he is married to a Bulgarian national. The couple has three small children,
who are Bulgarian citizens by birth. The National Security Service presented
no evidence to secure the claim that he posed a "threath to national
security ", apart from stating that he had taught "radical Islam"
- something which was later denied by the Chief Mufti's Office of the
Muslims in Bulgaria. At present the case of Mr. Musa is under examination
in the ECHR. It is not an isolated case. The similar one is the case of
Mr. Daruish Al Nashif, a person without citizenship. Mr.
Al Nashif was also declared a "threat to national security"
with the same "arguments", he was also
Muslim and married to a Bulgarian national. He has two small children
who have Bulgarian citizenship from birth. Mr. Al Nashif brought a lawsuit
against Bulgaria before the ECHR. On December 16, 1999, the Court declared
his application admissible. (For more details see the Press Release of
Tolerance Foundation dated August 9, 2000 as well as the Annual Report
of Tolerance Foundation for 2000, dated March 23, 2001. Both of texts
now are available on the web site of the Greek Helsinki Monitor: http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
and also on the web site of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee: http://www.bghelsinki.org)
back >The group was founded in 1994. Mr. Emil Cohen is President of the Tolerance Foun-dation. Since April 2001 the organization has been an associate member of Human Rights without Frontiers International. Address:
1000 Sofia, 163A Rakovski Str |