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The Commissioner considers that there is a need for a political and cultural shift in the way minority groups are treated and portrayed in Bulgaria, where hate speech, discrimination and hostility against Roma, LGBTI people and persons belonging to other minority groups remain an issue of acute concern. She calls on the authorities to react vigorously to incidents of hate speech, including by high-level politicians, enhance legal protection against discrimination and hate crimes, and effectively investigate and prosecute such crimes.

Respect and recognition for the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria: strong condemnation of the announcements for a possible deregistration of a human rights organization

More than 70 Bulgarian and 40 foreign and international NGOs expressed their support for the biggest human rights organization in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, after one of the parties in the ruling coalition in Bulgaria, VMRO-BND, asked the Prosecutor General of Bulgaria to initiate proceedings for de-registration, i.e. prohibition of our organization.

For the second year in a row, Bulgaria’s prosecutor general rejected the annual report about the situation of human rights in Bulgaria prepared by Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC)—largest and oldest human rights non-profit in the country.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee expresses concern over this appointment. For the time that he was chair of the commission on legal affairs Danail Kirilov contributed to weakening the rule of law and undermining civil rights and liberties in Bulgaria with a long-term impact.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee appeals for your help in saving the homes of 17 Roma families from the village of Voivodinovo, near Plovdiv, South-East Bulgaria. The families are in danger of losing their only homes as a result of forceful demolitions.

Constitutional Court’s decision effectively stops Bulgaria from ratifying the Istanbul Convention, the most important document on violence against women

The disjointed and internally contradictory text of the decision makes it impossible to follow the coherent reasoning by which the court reached its conclusion of unconstitutionality.