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DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT OF THE HUMAN AND MINORITY RIGHTS IN BULGARIA


PARTY FOR INTEGRATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND ECONOMIC ADVANSMENT ZK Elenovo, bl. 6 B app. 6, p.k. Mechkarovi, Post Cod 2700, Blagoewgrad, BULGARIA, tel. 044 (0)79 44359525, e-mail: omo_ilinden_pirin@yahoo.com

OMO Ilinden-PIRIN

To the Committee of the Ministers of Europe Your Excellences, OMO "linden"-PIRIN was established as a party on 28th February 1998, was registered on 13th February 1999 and was banned on 19th February 2000 by the Constitutional Court of The Republic of Bulgaria. On 20th October 2005 the party won the trial against the ban in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. From 14th May 2006 OMO "Ilinden" - PIRIN is observer member of European Free Alliance. The main problems of the party come from the solely fact that it is the only one in Republic of Bulgaria which recognizes the existence of a Macedonian minority and struggles for respecting the rights of the Macedonians and thus frequently stated as an antinationalistic and antigovernment party. The denials of the existence of the Macedonian minority and the violation of the rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria have been an official policy in Republic of Bulgaria for the last 50 years. The discrimination of OMO Ilinden-PIRIN is a part of the policy of discrimination of the ethnic minorities in the country. In February 2006 we turned to the Committee of the Ministers of Europe with an application for intervention in gaining back our registration since there is no procedure in Bulgaria for reversing the decision of the Constitutional Court. In the absence of a procedure in Bulgaria for regaining the unlawfully taken registration of OMO "Ilinden" - PIRIN the party started a new procedure for registering in the circumstances of a new discriminative law for political parties demanding gathering of 5 000 signatures in order to be established as a political party. On 25th June 2006 the party opened its foundation meeting under media pressure, disinformation and threats produced by other political parties and even by some MPs. The arguments given against the registering of the new party were accompanied with vast disinformation campaign that it was founded on an ethnic basis (something which is against the Bulgarian Constitution), that it is anti-Bulgarian and separatist and last but not least that at the foundation meeting the participants were less than the needed 500 founders. In this smear campaign alongside the media took part agents from the political police of the Blagoevgrad (Pirin) region, whose control over some of the journalists was evident. The peak of the escalated situation happened when MPs openly called that members of the party should be put in jail without a trial (Boris Yachev and Krasimir Karakachanov) and various Mayors started talking that all the Macedonians should be expelled from Bulgaria (one of them was Blagoevgrads mayor Lazar Prichkapov); municipality councilor in Varna, Veselin Danov saying that Macedonians must be shot dead if they go out on the streets and etc. None of the above provoked any sign of uproar or condemnation in the Bulgarian society. Party members were target of other disinformation propaganda that pensioners would stop receiving their pensions if becoming members of the party. When the party eventually succeeded to gather the needed 5 000 members another controlled campaign came into force in the media, claiming that it got all its members by paying them for each signature. Then followed another series of threats by politicians in the press, provocations that the Prosecution should deal with the activists of the party and similar. The MP and a candidate for a president of Bulgaria, Volen Siderov, said that if he had power, he would take citizenship of members of the party and the Head of the Organization of the Blagoevgrad Municipalities Valentin Chilikov and a mayor of the village of Strumiani and a head of the Organization of the Municipalities of Bulgaria said without any doubt that opposite the Bulgarians the Macedonians in Bulgaria are not loyal citizens of the country.

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We suspect that the telephones of the leaders of the party are regularly under surveillance by the political police in the area. On 9th September without giving any reason one of the leaders of PIRIN - Botyo Vangelov was detained by civil policemen, who didn't legitimate themselves, and also confiscated from him a list with the names and personal details of 499 members of the party. He was kept in the local police station for 6 hours and have been repeatedly insulted with ethnic slurs. The list was given back after 5 days. A bit later the local directorate of the police gave to the media a made up story, using the facts in the way they liked, claiming that there was an attempt of breaking by force in a state's building; an attempt to break into a secret database and so on. In the evening of 19th September, allegedly informed that there had been a "trade with signatures," the police came into the party's club in Blagoevgrad, where its members were preparing the documents for the court and wanted to confiscate the list with party members as "material evidence". Fortunately, this didn't happen because the people resisted this unlawful action. The campaign in the press didn't stop for 9 days and surprisingly stopped on the day when the documents for registration were taken to the court, although the party kept that in secret from the media. On 25th December 2005 the Party filed in an application for a meeting with the Procurator General of Bulgaria in connection with the violation of the human rights of the Party's members. These applications, as well as a complaint filed during April have been left with no reply. According to the law for the Political parties in Bulgaria the court is bound to set a trial in the period of 1 month from the moment the documents for registration are accepted and after that in 2 weeks to lay down its decision. The documents were given on 20th September. The Sofia City Court broke the law by setting the trial date for 8th November, 1 month and 19 days later. Unexpectedly the court changed its last decision of setting the trial on 8th November and rescheduled it for 18th October which means the law is observed. But the party have received the summons only 5 days before the date of the trial and not 7 as it is supposed to be. On 16th October this year, Monday since 8 o'clock a.m. groups of 4 people each, consisting of a representative of the Prosecution, local policemen, representatives of economical police and one more person have started going to the homes and working places of people who had signed as members of the party. They have been rudely interrogating, threatening and otherwise harassing our members by asking them whether they've known that our party was forbidden in Bulgaria, whether we had paid them and promised them anything for becoming members of OMO "Ilinden" - PIRIN, and whether they wanted to have trouble with the law; they have declared to them that they could be responsible for that and insisted that the people should sign and fill in declaration and that they didn't know what they have signed when they had filled in their applications. In this process old people have been threatened, students as well have been threatened that they would be excluded from Institute if they didn't sign a declaration that they hadn't known what they've signed. The same events happened in the cities of Peshtera and Goce Delchev and on 18th and 19th October in the city of Bansko. On 17th October the Party filed 3 complaints to the Procurator General, the Ministry of Interior and the Justice Ministry regarding these practices. The trial on 18th October 2006 in the Sofia regional court regarding the application for registration of OMO Ilinden- PIRIN. The Prosecution presented over 90 pages of evidence as grounds to deny the party's registration. The lawyer of the party Yonko Grozev, from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, asked for a delay in order to have time to look at these evidence. His request was denied and he was given 30 minutes to get familiar at the time and to make his objections. The Prosecution insisted on denial of the request for registration because of incorrect data in the documents, such as: 66 of the declarations have been written by one person only. In support to that was attached an expertise. The lawyer wanted a chance to talk to the person who had made the expertise, noting that there were obvious errors, for example that the signature of the co-president of the party Botio Vangelov, placed in the bottom of his declaration for membership and in the list with the founders, didn't belong to the same person, something that Vangelov as a present there testified. The request was denied. There were about 60 persons declarations from the police claiming that they

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had never given applications for membership in the party but in most of them the name of this party is OMO "Ilinden" which is a party/organization existing parallel to ours or absolutely different name ( VMRO OMO "Ilinden", VMRO Ilinden and others). The lawyer requested to be given the applications of this people in order to be seen whether they had signed them themselves but this request was also denied. Another offence of the law was pointed out that Stoyan Mechkarov who lives in London had become a member of the party, despite the fact that he is a Bulgarian citizen. Also as evidence were presented two orders from the prosecutors of the town of Sandanski and the town of Goce Delchev for an investigation of alleged payments or other violations in filling in the applications for membership in the party. One of them was based on a complaint from the ultra nationalistic VMRO-BND for which only source were publications in the press during the mass media campaign to smear our party. Both of them had a deadline for the investigation which had expired a long time ago before the present trial of the court (18.10.2006) although the results from these investigations weren't presented as an evidence (according to the party source those mentioned hadn't proved any violations of the law and that's why they weren't presented in the court). The Prosecution didn't present any evidence that payments were made to attact party members and neither denied the total number of the members (almost 6000 from the necessary 5 000), nor complained against the constitution of the party. The complaints were aimed at the foundation committee and the insisting on that there wasn't a quorum (the required number is minimum 500 people). The decisions of the Court in Strasbourg (ECHR)weren't mentioned at all today in the Court. The court denied all of the requests of the lawyer of the party, even his plea to be given extra time to present more evidence, but accepted all "evidence" and demands of the Prosecution and gave a start of the trial which means that in 14 days ( till 1st November) decision will be made. Eventually the Prosecutor declared that OMO "Ilinden" - PIRIN had violated also Article 11 from the Chart of the Human Rights - e.g. the rights of the citizens to create their own parties and organizations and added that as ground for denial of the registration. The Prosecution declared in front of the press that it was found the existence of underage members in the lists of the party but their number wasn't clear which according to the Prosecution only 3 were. The press showed an interesting change in their behavior. They took pictures of the empty room, the lawyer and the representatives of PIRIN (without asking them for their permission ) but after the end of the meeting they took statements only from the Prosecutor but not from representatives of the party. The news of "many incorrectness in the documents" was published the same afternoon with the comments of a great number of politicians. In the same time nobody interviewed the Party's press officer to hear the other side of the story. Here are some of the published opinions only two hours later: The Regional coordinator of the fourth in influence Bulgarian parliamentary party "Ataka"("Attack") stated on the radio that the leaders of OMO "Ilinden "- PIRIN should be jailed. "We from "Attack" in The Balgoevgrad region will make everything possible no to be permit the registration of OMO "Ilinden "- PIRIN." The MP from VMRO BND Boris Yachev: "This is the normal way to stop such people. If this party is registered this will put the government in a dangerous position when so many other formations will ask for registration as well" and could be expected a pile of applications for registering of different minority parties. The MP of DSB (Democrats for Free Bulgaria) from Blagoevgrad region Eliana Maseva: "I agree that if the government would allow the registration of separatist organizations it will put the state in dangerous position affecting national security. Their formation from clear point of view is anticonstitutional."

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The MP from NDSV (a party in the present government) Snezhana Grozdilova for Blagoevgrad region: "it is normal to expect such development keeping in mind that all of us in Pirin Macedonia witnessed irregular gathering of signatures from almost illiterate or illiterate citizens. The MP of ODS in Pirin Macedonia Yasen Popvasilev: Such a party in Bulgaria shouldnt exist. According to the opinion of the lawyer (Yonko Grozev from the Bulgarian Helsinki committee) the development of the trial does not leave any hope for registering of the party at this very moment. I think that our chances for being registered without international intervention is less than 5 %. Intervention from the European institutions is our only hope to defend the right of association in Bulgaria. The moment is critical because if the trial goes to the Suprime Court it wont be given a period for an answer and the party could stay without a registration for years. It is impressive the way weve been treated knowing the fact that we are a party-observer in EFA. The presence of an observer in the trial could also have a positive effect. All of the above seems to be an indirect way of replying to the verdict of ECHR in Strasbourg that ruled Bulgaria is in violation of our human rights. Your Excellences, We turn to you for help to make everything possible for implementing the human rights and democratic principals in Bulgaria! With kind regards, The Leadership of OMO Ilinden-PIRIN, Stoyko Stoykov, co-president, Blagoevgrad, 19.10.2006

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