religion

Freedom of conscience and religion

The legal provisions that regulate the activities of the religious communities in Bulgaria remained unchanged in 2009. However, after the July elections the public environment, in which the religious groups operate, changed significantly. High-ranking government officials and representatives of the Ataka party, which supports the government, came up with public proposals for further restriction of the rights of religious communities.

On 21 January 2009, the ECtHR announced its decision on The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Metropolitan Inokentii v. Bulgaria. It concerns the actions of the government on outlawing in 2004, with the help of the police and the prosecution, the followers of the so-called “alternative synod” of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) headed by Metropolitan Inokentii. This is a group within the church, which since the start of the democratic changes has opposed the officially recognized wing of Patriarch Maxim, accusing him of collaborating with the communist authorities. The ECtHR condemned the way the authorities dealt with the “alternative synod”, holding a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In this case the court once again stressed that in a democratic society the authorities may not force the religious communities to obey a single leadership. In this respect, the court also held that the 2002 Religions Act does not comply with the ECHR standards of a law, insofar as it leaves a lot of room for discretion to the authorities in defining, which is the legitimate leadership of the religion.The court believes that the law is formulated under a false pretence of neutrality.

The ECtHR decision was met by strong opposition by wide circles in Bulgarian society and by the Bulgarian authorities. The BOC’s official wing came up with a special declaration, in which it denounced the judgment, calling it an interference in the country’s internal affairs. The government took no action to meet the demands of the “alternative synod”.

At the end of September, minister without portfolio Bozhidar Dimitrov, who is also responsible for the Council of Ministers’ Religions Directorate, in a response to a question by a member of parliament, expressed concern that it is too easy to register a religion in our country and said that it is high time that the conditions for the registration of religious communities be changed and that no legal existence be allowed for religions with less than 5000 members. Several days later, in an interview for RE:TV, Tsveta Georgieva, an MP from the Ataka party, stated that “a bill is being prepared to amend the Religions Act” and gave some details: to have all religious organisations in the country register again; to introduce a threshold of at least 5,000 members for a religious organisation to be granted religion status; to ban the existence of cult buildings within 50 meters of schools (she gave an example with the “unacceptable situation,” in which the prayer building of a protestant church in her home town, Varna, was located “right behind a school”).

On October 17, The Monitor daily published an interview with another member of parliament, this time from GERB, Dr. Krasimira Simeonova. She proposed something, which can hardly be defined as anything else but absurd: the minimum number of members required for the registration of a religious organisation to be 250,000.

Disturbed by these officially announced intentions to curb the religious rights of Bulgarian citizens, 27 religious and human rights organizations issued a protest declaration on 23 October.[1] On 27 October, it became clear that the largest non-orthodox Christian churches in Bulgaria, the United Evangelist Churches and the Catholic Church, have signed the document. Thus the number of signatories became 35.[2]

The BHC invited minister Bozhidar Dimitrov to the Obektiv’s discussion club to discuss what he, as the author of the far reaching amendments to the Religions Act, has to say in defence of his ideas. The minister did not come, but explicitly authorized Georgi Krastev, a long-term high-ranking official of the Religions Directorate, to represent him in a conversation with human rights lawyer Ivan Gruykin. The conversation was published in the November issue of the Obektiv magazine, entitled “The Religions Act Doesn’t Need Dramatic Amendments.” During the conversation it became clear that minister Dimitrov’s official representative has been authorized to state that only small technical amendments need to be introduced in the act, in order to make life easier for the religious communities.[3] This was the end for the time being of this first after the adoption of the act on 20 December 2002 attempt at its revision in a repressive direction.

A series of violations of Bulgarian citizens’ religious rights occurred during the year. As in previous years, most of them targeted the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Muslim religion. Other religions were also affected. The most severe violations included the desecration of prayer and/or administrative buildings of the religions. In the night of 12 July there was an attempt to use a Molotov cocktail against the building of the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria – Shalom, as well as the adjacent former synagogue, a monument of culture. The mosque in Blagoevgrad was set on fire on 5 October. A section of its roof was burned. The mosque in Nikopol was set on fire and burned completely on 7 October. There were also lesser attempts to damage Muslim prayer homes: a window of the Haskovo mosque was broken on 12 July; a window and two glass panels of the main door of the mosque in Krichim were broken in the night of 15 November, a swastika was hewn on the wall next to the door and a marble plaque bearing the name of the mosque was painted with white paint; a window was broken and insults to the Muslims were painted on the walls of the mosque in Kazanluk on 13 November; swastikas and obscene phrases were painted on the walls of the Dzhumaya mosque in Plovdiv on 30 November; swastikas and the phrase “Muslims out” were painted on the walls of the Imaret mosque in Plovdiv on 1 December. The perpetrators of all these incidents were never discovered and brought to court.

Another extraordinary conference of the Muslim religion was held on 31 October. It was convened on court’s order with the purpose to elect – again after a similar conference in July 2008 – the leadership of the religion. However, the Sofia City Court, acting on complaint by former chief mufti Nedim Gendzhev, once again refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the conference and the results from its work. Thus the division that has existed for many years in the Muslim religion remained. The Supreme Cassation Court is expected to rule which is the legitimate leadership of the religion.

Sources from the Chief Mufti’s Office pointed out that in November and December more than 700 delegates to the conference were summoned to police stations at their home towns and at the National Security State Agency (NSSA) and were questioned about who and when has selected them to become delegates and whether they were forced to vote as they did. Late in the autumn NSSA officials, asked to be provided, without a warrant or motivation, the whole documentation of the Area Mufti’s Office in Gotse Delchev.The construction of the Islamic Centre in the Malinova Dolina neighbourhood in Sofia did not commence in 2009, too. According to the Chief Mufti’s Office, the Municipality of Sofia has been stalling the project for more than a year and a half by not issuing the necessary construction permits while at the same time not issuing a final refusal. The situation with the mosque in Burgas is the same. The construction was stopped and could not be completed throughout the year due to the barriers that the Chief Mufti’s Office alleges to have been created by the Burgas municipal authorities.

A series of violations of the rights of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious community occurred during the year. The construction of the so-called Kingdom Hall in Varna remained frozen in 2009, too. Thus, for the fourth consecutive year the religion cannot build its prayer home, due to the constant administrative hindrances created by the Municipality of Varna. Since the start of the construction works the mayor of Varna, Kiril Yordanov, has on many occasions – including in special public statements, such as the one on 17 September – expressed his will and conviction that as long as he is mayor the Jehovah’s Witnesses will not build their prayer home in Varna.

On 2 April, 3 May and 10 May members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) and Ataka rallied in front of a hall in Dobrich, in which the Jehovah’s Witnesses held their meetings. On 11 October some 80 IMRO and Ataka supporters rallied against the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ regional congress that was held in this city. Regardless of the protests, however, the events took place.

According to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there were other attempts to prevent events organized by them, such as one on 26 April in Varna, once again organized by the IMRO and Ataka. On 3 November, a meeting of the local community of the Witnesses in Sandanski was ended by three police officers who presented a warrant for its termination. Their arguments were that according to them no local division of the Witnesses has been registered in Sandanski, although by law such a registration is not compulsory. The religious organisation filed for local registration in April 2008, but has still not received the registration document required by the Municipality of Sandanski.

On 9 April, the day of the Witnesses’ greatest holiday (the equivalent of Easter for the other Christian religions), there were attempts to prevent the meetings of the local divisions in Gabrovo, Smolyan and Ruse. Over 70 people rallied in front of the hall in Ruse where the meeting was taking place, shouting hostile slogans.

On 3 April, in Gorna Oryahovitsa two members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses from the United States and Italy were ordered by the police to put an end to their preaching in the city. Similar cases involving a ban to preach in public or door-to-door were registered in Plovdiv on 16 April, 11 June and 16 June.

As in previous years, local newspapers in Burgas, Veliko Tarnovo, Dobrich, Varna and Sofia (a specialized women’s newspaper) published many defamatory articles about the Jehovah’s Witnesses “cult”.On 27 August, 59-year-old Elena Tomova, a baptized follower of the Witnesses, was found dead at her home in the village of Vlado Trichkovo near Svoge. When it was revealed that notes found in the house expressed her affiliation with the religious community of the Witnesses, several media published sensational allegations that this a “ritual killing” performed by the cult’s followers.

[1] 27 religious and civil rights organisations protest against the planned amendments in the Religions Act, press release, available online at: http://bghelsinki.org/index.php?module=news&lg=bg&id=2755

[2] Catholic Church and United Evangelist Churches support the declaration of the 27, press release, available online at: http://bghelsinki.org/index.php?module=news&id=2799

[3] See Obektiv, no. 169, November 2009, available at: http://www.bghelsinki.org/index.php?module=resources&lg=bg&cat_id=1.