12 septembre 2007
BRITAIN SET FOR GYPSY INVASION
THE self-styled Gipsy King of Romania has warned that millions of his people are set to flood into Britain.
Florin Cioaba claims many of the three million gipsies in Romania and Bulgaria want to head here “for a better life”.
And he even took a swipe at the UK for failing to do enough to help the immigrants settle here.
Although he said “everyone hates gipsies”, he urged Britain to build accommodation centres to house his people.
Cioaba spoke at an annual gipsy festival in Costesti, central Romania, to a crowd of thousands. He said: “Thousands of Roma will leave for western Europe looking for jobs and a better life.
“They feel discriminated against at home.
“The next two years will be critical for Europe because it will need to learn to absorb the high number of immigrants.”
He blamed the Romanian authorities for the exodus and said: “Everybody hates the gipsies, even though not all of us are criminals. What we need to do is help them integrate in the country they have chosen.
“What each EU country should do is set up some help and directing centres for these people.”
But Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the anti-immigration group Migrationwatch, said: “The Government promised that only those willing to work in the UK would be allowed to stay.
“These promises must be kept.”
In Italy, drastic measures have been used to solve crime problems caused by gipsies.
And in Dublin earlier this year, 90 Romanian gipsies were repatriated after they set up a camp on a motorway roundabout.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/15214/Britain-set-for-Gypsy-invasion/
28 août 2007
Hand of Bulgaria's law
Anyone who dares violate public order and provoke ethnic tension will feel the hand of the law, Interior Minister Roumen Petkov told reporters on August 20 after meeting President Georgi Purvanov. Purvanov asked Petkov to discuss the situation that occurred on August 14 in Sofia when about 300 Roma people gathered in the Krasna Polyana borough shouting “Death to Bulgarians”. The Roma claimed that they had been constantly under attack by skinheads. Riots erupted and police officers and citizens were injured. Many motor vehicles were damaged, shop windows broken and properties ruined.
The Romas were armed with wooden poles and threatening anyone who passed near them. The riot ended by the morning. During the whole time, the police monitored the crowd but did not actively engage in the situation.
The Roma riot provoked harsh reactions, with President Purvanov and Prime Minister Sergei Stansihev asking for actions to be taken by the police to investigate the situation. On August 20, Petkov said that 35 people, of which 13 were Roma, had been officially warned by the police. Four Roma people were arrested in relation to the riots after the police saw the footage from TV cameras. “The conflict in Krasna Polyana is not a new one and will not end tomorrow. I just want to warn those responsible for it that police authorities will make them feel the hand of the law,” Petkov said.
“There will be no such thing as a national guard,” Petkov also said. He was referring to an August 20 statement by Vladimir Rasate, a little-known leader of a nationalist group Bulgarian National Union (BNU), who said that BNU will create a national guard that will protect people in times of riots, when “the authorities do nothing”. Rasate even presented 12 people as already members of the future guard who were dressed in uniforms and boots resembling army uniforms from the late 1930s and early 1940s.
According to Rasate, the guard will be Bulgarians’ alternative when the authorities do not fulfil their duties to protect them. “We are witnessing how Bulgarians have been terrorised by Roma for the past 17 years and all governments are to blame for that because there is no punishment for the perpetrators,” Rasate said. The national guard will be formed from volunteers who will be trained by former military experts.”
His call for a national guard was not well received by some of the minority groups in the country.
“Bulgaria should not allow the creation of such a thing as the national guard Rasate wants,” Robert Gerassi, chairman of the Central Israeli Spiritual Council, and Maxim Benvenisti, chairman of the organisation of Jews in Bulgaria Shalom, wrote in an open letter addressed to Purvanov and Stanishev on August 20. “Formations such as the national guard could threaten the ethnic peace in the country very easily,” the letter said. “Today this guard will protect Bulgarians from the Roma, tomorrow from the Jewish people and then probably from Armenians and Muslims.”
According to Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov, the issue with the Roma is a social one, not an ethnic one. “By the end of the month the European Commission will provide three million dollars for Roma housing in the neighbourhoods of Krasna Polyana, Zaharna Fabrika and Batalova Vodenitsa. “It does not matter if we like the Roma or not, we should integrate them into our society,” Borissov told reporters on August 21 after meeting Roma leaders. As for Rasate’s ideas, Borissov’s summary says it all. “These ideas are complete nonsense. This is a political messages aimed at the October 28 local elections.”
http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/hand-of-the-law/id_24553/catid_5
27 août 2007
PRESIDENT TO ARBITRATE BETWEEN BULGARIANS AND ROMA
Bulgaria’s President Georgi Purvanov said that he was ready to “mediate and play an active role” for the obliteration of tensions between Bulgarians and Roma.
Purvanov said that tensions between Bulgarians and Roma should not be provoked and the everyday-life scandals should not be turned into national news.
The law is equal for everyone and should be respected, he said.
Purvanov also called on society and the media to reject the idea of the extreme nationalist Boyan Rasate for the establishment of national guards, mediapool.bg reported.
Rasate’s guards could cause ethnic and religious problems, according to Purvanov. The national guards in other European countries were established to help in cases of calamities.
The president would not convene the Consultative Council for National Security because of the frictions, mediapool.bg said.
Some 200 people took part in a brawl between Bulgarians and Roma in Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district in mid-August 2007. Days later, a 17-year-old Roma boy died in another mass fight in the town of Samokov.
26 août 2007
Sofia Mayor Proposes Roma to Join Police Patrols in Risky Districts
Sofia Mayor Boyko Borissov proposed on Monday that Roma people should join the police patrols in the city and take part in the guard of the city districts where conflicts between the Roma and Bulgarians occur on a regular basis.
Mayor Borissov will send his proposal to the head of the Sofia police Rumen Stoyanov and will demand more and bigger police patrols to be sent to the Krasna Polyana district.
The city mayor and the leader of the Euroroma party Tsvetelin Kanchev agreed on hiring 20 Roma people to serve in the municipality-owned security firm Egida. Currently only fourteen Roma work for Egida.
At a Tuesday press conference Mayor Borissov informed that the Roma population living in the Batalova Vodenitsa district will be moved in Vazrazhdane and those living in the caravans on Europa Boulevard will be moved in Suhodol.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=84428
Bulgarie : Manifestation après la mort d’un jeune tzigane
Un millier de Tziganes ont manifesté, mercredi 22 août, à Samokov, au sud-ouest de la Bulgarie, pour protester contre la mort la veille au soir d'un jeune de leur communauté au cours d'une bagarre avec des Bulgares.
"La victime est un Rom de 17 ans, qui a été battu à mort par des hooligans de souche bulgare. Il était pacifiste et n'a pas opposé de résistance. Cela lui a coûté la vie", a déclaré le leader du parti tzigane Euroroma, Tsvetelin Kantchev.
D’après lui, "il s'agit du cinquième incident depuis sept ans dans lequel un Tzigane est tué à Samokov". De son côté, le ministère bulgare de l'Intérieur s’est borné à faire état de "la mort d'un jeune homme à Samokov à la suite d'une bagarre".
Il y a dix jours, un jeune Rom avait été grièvement blessé par des hooligans à Sofia. En réponse à cet incident, les Roms du quartier avaient attaqué un café bulgare, faisant quatre blessés parmi les clients.
Selon Antonina Jeliazkova du Centre d'étude des minorités de Sofia, "l'animosité entre les (650 000) Roms et les autres groupes ethniques de la population bulgare a toujours existé, nourrie par les préjugés". Elle remarque toutefois que la tension actuelle "est attisée par des hommes politiques dans la perspective des élections municipales en octobre".
Ainsi, en début de semaine, le petit parti nationaliste Union des nationalistes bulgares a annoncé la création d'une sorte de milice pour faire pièce aux activités supposées délictueuses des Roms. Il a ouvertement déclaré recruter des volontaires pour mener ce "combat".
Plus important politiquement, le parti "Ataka" d'extrême droite a remporté 21 sièges au Parlement de Sofia à la faveur des élections législatives de 2005.
En Roumanie voisine, des échauffourées entre plusieurs centaines de villageois d'origine hongroise et des Roms ont fait plusieurs blessés à Apata, au centre du pays, dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi. R.M.
http://www.fenetreeurope.com/php/page.php?section=actu&id=8825
15 août 2007
Roma vendetta
| 15 August 2007 | 06:13 | |
After the bloody clash between Roma people and skinheads at Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district on Monday night the outraged minority continued clashing on Tuesday. One man was injured in the clashes, while some 300 Roma people were shouting “Death for the Bulgarians” on Sofia’s Vazkresenie blvd.
Deputy Interior Minister Kamen Penkov and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kamen Sitnilski arrived at the place of accident. Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov appealed to the Ministry of Interior to take control of the situation at the district. The Roma people even struck at policemen.
FOCUS News Agency:
Situation at Sofia’s Krasna Polyana district calmed down
The situation at Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district is now calm, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. There are still gendarmes and policemen on the scene, but the Roma people have gone away.
The leader of Evroroma party, Tsvetelin Kanchev said he reported to the Ministry of Interior about the people who might have caused the clashes. I am tired of saying that there are no skinheads, he also noted.
Sofia Mayor fears there is no police in other Sofia districts
The fact that all police forces are here now and there is no police in the other districts is to be feared, Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov announced at the scene of clashes in Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district, cited by a journalist of FOCUS News Agency. He said the next thing to do is go and talk to the Roma leaders and to detain the skinheads. Mr. Borisov said that when he was secretary general of the Ministry of Interior there were similar problems with the Roma people, but they were solved within hours.
Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov and CEDB chairman Tsvetan Tsvetanov are in Krasna Polyana district
Sofia’a Mayor Boyko Borisov and the chairman of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB) Tsvetan Tsvetanov arrived on the scene of the clashes in Sofia's Krasna Polyana district, Focus News Agency reports.
Roma vendetta (ROUNDUP II)
On a second night of Roma clashes in Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district one man was slightly injured, while 300 Roma people were headed for Vazkresenie Blvd., shouting ‘Death for the Bulgarians’. A 28-year-old Roma was injured in the clashes, the medics on the scene reported. The injured was not beaten but fell down. He was transported to a hospital with trivial injuries.
During the clashes on Tuesday night a Roma child was heavily stressed. The situation is getting back to normal.
Deputy Minister of Interior Kamen Penkov stated that the situation is under control. Deputy Minister Kamen Penkov said that Gendarmeries have been sent to the scene.
He noted they are not going there to use violence but to provide order and peace to the citizens of Sofia.
Deputy Minister of Interior Kamen Penkov later arrived at the scene. It was rumoured that a group of skinheads were going to the district. This information is not confirmed.
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov has been notified of the Roma clashes. The president keeps close track of the situation.
Roma people are trying to chase away the journalist that arrived at Rishki Prohod Str.
They say that they have been harassed by Bulgarians and are claiming to be the victims of the two-day clashes in Krasna Polyana. Numerous groups of Roma people are going to 28th School, where the mass fight took place on Monday with the intention to continue the clashes. There are policemen near the school while at Rishki Prohod Str. no policemen can be seen. The journalist there might be endangered.
Tsvetelin Kanchev left Roma dormitories escorted by fancy cars
As soon as the journalists left Rishki Prohod Str., police cars also left the scene of the Roma clashes, Focus News Agency reports. Roma people are still at the street and obviously they will not go home tonight. There are women, children and infants in the crowds. Most of the men set off to Vazkresenie Boulevard, where the headquarters of the Roma organization Evroroma are situated.
Evroroma’s leader Tsvetelin Kanchev left the Roma dormitories with an escort of luxurious cars, no matter that earlier today he promised to stay all night. It is obvious that Roma people do not respect the authorities because what is happening today is another action against the Bulgarians in Krasna Polyana.
Deputy Minister of Interior: The situation is under control
Deputy Minister of Interior Kamen Penkov stated that the situation is under control, Focus News Agency reports. Deputy Minister Kamen Penkov said that Gendarmeries have been sent to the scene.
Interior Ministry SG: Gendarmes have been sent to scene of clashes
We have sent gendarmes to the scene of clashes in Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district, Iliya Iliev, Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior informed FOCUS News Agency. He noted they are not going there to use violence but to provide order and peace to the citizens of Sofia.
Deputy Minister of Interior Kamen Penkov arrived at the clashes
Deputy Minister of Interior Kamen Penkov arrived at the scene in Krasna Polyana district, Focus News Agency reports. It was rumoured that a group of skinheads are going to the district. This information is not confirmed.
President Parvanov notified of Roma clashes
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov has been notified of the Roma clashes at Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. The president keeps close track of the situation. As Focus reported earlier a few Roma people were headed for Vazkresenie Blvd, where the president lives.
Roma people chasing journalists away
Roma people are trying to chase away the journalist that arrived at Rishki Prohod Str., Focus News Agency reports. They say that they have been harassed by Bulgarians and are claiming to be the victims of the two-day clashes in Krasna Polyana. Numerous groups of Roma people are going to 28th School, where the mass fight took place on Monday with the intention to continue the clashes. There are policemen near the school while at Rishki Prohod Str. no policemen can be seen. The journalist there might be endangered.
Still no policemen at the Krasna Polyana clashes
There are still no policemen at Sofia's Krasna Polyana clashes, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. There is only one ambulance nearby. The closest policemen are a few blocks away. The situation is getting back to normal, however, there are still a few Roma people armed with wooden poles, axes and spades.
28-year-old Roma injured in Krasna Polyana clashes
A 28-year-old Roma is the man who was injured in the clashes in Krasna Polyana district, the medics on the scene report for Focus News Agency. The injured was not beaten but fell down. He was transported to a hospital with trivial injuries.
During the clashes on Tuesday night a Roma child was heavily stressed. The situation is getting back to normal but there are still a few Roma people on the scene armed with poles.
300 Roma pople headed for Vazkresenie Boulevard
Over 300 Roma people are headed for Sofia's Vaskresenie Boulevard, where the President Georgi Parvanov lives, Focus News Agency reports.
Interior ministry SG: All measures for taming the Roma people are taken
Iliya Iliev, Secretary General of the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior, said for FOCUS News Agency that all the necessary measures for taming the Roma people have been taken. According to him guards are not necessary, as the problems can be solved in a more civilized way the next day. He stated that if necessary officers from the Gendarmerie will be sent to the scene.
'Death for the Bulgarians’ shout Roma people (ROUNDUP)
One person has been injured in the Roma clashes in Sofia’s Krasna Polyana residential district on Tuesday night. The injured man has been sent to hospital, but there is no information about his state. The Roma people are shouting “Death for the Bulgarians”. There are no policemen on the scene after they were also attacked by the Roma people. More than 400 Romas have gathered in the area. They want to seek revenge for last night’s fight, saying it was not their fault.
Roma people at Krasna Polyana district still outrageous
The Roma people at the Krasna Polyana residential district are still outrageous, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. There are no policemen on the scene and the residents are very afraid at what has been going on. They say such things happen daily.
Roma people attack policemen in Sofia district
Roma people attacked policemen in Sofia residential district Krasna Polyana, a journalist of Focus News Agency reported.
The policemen fired warning shots in the air, but without any effect.
After the attack the police car left the place of the incident. The Roma people are breaking everything within their reach, yelling “death for Bulgarians”. There are no policemen in the area.
Maria STALYANOVA
More Roma people are gathering in Sofia district
More Roma people are gathering in Sofia residential district Krasna Polyana, a journalist of Focus News Agency reported.
They are over 200. The police cannot suppress the Roma people who are threatening to take the law in their own hands.
The Roma stressed Monday’s fight was not initiated by them. There are mothers with children as well. All are armed with clubs. Residents in the district said the Roma attacked a car earlier on Tuesday.
One injured in unrest in Sofia district
One person was injured in unrest in Sofia residential district Krasna Polyana, a journalist of Focus News Agency reported.
About 200 Romas armed with clubs have gathered in the district. Now they are blocking a road in the neighborhood. The police have already arrived, but they cannot stop the Roma people who are determined to revenge Monday’s fight in the district. Romas from Fakulteta distrct in Sofia are joining the gathered ones.
Maria STALYANOVA
Police on their way to Sofia district
The police are on their way to Sofia residential district Krasna Polyana where over 100 Roma people have already gathered, a journalist of Focus News Agency reported.
The district mayor of Krasna Polyana Vasil Karaivanov has turned his mobile phone off.
Maria STALYANOVA
About 50 Roma people have gathered in Sofia district
About 50 Roma people have gathered in Sofia residential district Krasna Polyana, a journalist of Focus News Agency reported.
The Roma people are armed with clubs; they are shouting and hitting electricity pylons. There is no police in the area.
On Monday evening four people were injured and four arrested after a large group of Romas attacked customers at a cafe in the same district.
25 juillet 2007
Ethnic Groups in Bulgaria Are More Apart Than Many Believe
17 07 2007 The transition to democracy has only increased the gap between ethnic communities in the country and there is no strategy to deal with the problem.
By Albena Shkodrova in Sofia
Want to stir ethnic troubles? Take a state with weak institutions, throw in a reasonable quantity of poverty and feelings of injustice, add a generous pinch of populism and there you are.
Bulgaria in 2007 has more or less all the needed ingredients for the recipe. Poverty is still very much present – the average income is only a quarter of the EU average, while living costs are starting to catch up with those in Europe.
Crucial social institutions are failing to perform their basic duties. Healthcare, the pensions system and other types of social care have barely functioned for years.
A recent survey by the Alpha Research polling agency revealed the public’s deep discontent with the government’s performance in these areas.
The judiciary is criticised both locally and internationally. So far, it has spectacularly failed to establish itself as a tool in the fight against corruption and organized crime, both flourishing in Bulgaria.
Although firm guidance from the EU has brought some progress in all these fields, the effect is not felt by the general public. The extent to which society distrusts institutions remains extremely high. Polls show as many as 70 per cent have no faith in parliament and the courts, while about 50 per cent do not trust the police, either.
Populism is also on the scene, pushing the political spectrum further to the right. The extreme right-wing Ataka party has quickly obtained a strong position in parliament and steadily increases its influence.
Ataka’s leader, Volen Siderov, was the closest rival to the current president, Georgi Purvanov, during the last round of presidential elections in 2006, leaving the candidates of much more important parties trailing behind.
Ataka’s successful use of populism has also inspired other parties to rely more on nationalism in their political campaigns.
It is all fertile ground for various forms of ethnic and religious intolerance. Indeed, those who believe that during 17 years of transition to democracy Bulgaria has bridged the gaps between its ethnic groups on the basis of new democratic values and beliefs in human rights are deluding themselves. What has happened over these years is the opposite; the ethnic groups are further apart than ever.
Since the beginning of the transition to democracy, all ethnic groups started regaining their human rights. But obtaining the right to speak and study their own languages, demonstrate their religious beliefs or have political representation has only increased a common awareness of existing differences.
Bulgarian leaders keep repeating slogans about the “natural ethnic tolerance” of their society. But as Valentin Danchev, an analyst and sociologist, puts it, this merely “allows Bulgarians to daily practice their intolerant behaviour while at the same time believing they are an example of ethnic tolerance”.
Bulgarians make themselves believe that their country is a stable member of the EU, while ethnic problems in fact are around the corner.
Particularly troubling to many Bulgarians is the of positive discrimination. Many efforts have been made to improve the life of disadvantaged groups, especially with a view to improving the conditions of the Roma, who in many ways have been the greatest victims of the economic transition process.
But it has now become clear that these efforts did at least as much damage as good. Carried out in an unsystematic way and not as part of a national strategy, they have ended up having a negative impact on society as a whole, as well as on the targeted minorities.
On the one hand they failed to solve any of the minorities’ substantial problems, such as their disadvantaged position in education or the labour market.
On the other, the way in which the campaigns were performed or promoted created resentment among ordinary Bulgarians. The idea took root that taxpayers were being asked to guarantee an undeserved degree of comfort for “lazy” minorities. That idea now dominates street conversation, readers’ forums and journalistic publications.
“So, taxpayers’ money will go on sponsoring Gypsies,” reads one entry under an article about new social housing in Plovdiv for Roma families. “It would have been good to finance young Bulgarian families with two or more children for a change but it seems the state cares more for the Gypsies!”
Recently, even a government minister was heard using similar language. Emilia Maslarova, Minister of Social Affairs, said she wished she were a Roma, as she would not have to pay her utility bills.
Unhappy with the low level of social security afforded by state institutions, more and more people blame their misfortunes on minorities.
The idea that the Roma are responsible for most of the criminality in Bulgaria has developed in a similar fashion. Less openly, the idea has grown that the Muslim minority also cannot be trusted and may turn into a nest of terrorists overnight.
All these lines are at the forefront of the far rights’ populist rhetoric. “Impertinent Gypsy robs Innocent English Tourist,” is an all-too typical recent item from the Ataka party newspaper.
An Alpha Research poll, conducted last March, showed the number of people who view an ethnic conflict in Bulgaria as increasingly likely is higher than ever at 32 per cent. A still higher figure, 38 per cent, believe that if such a conflict breaks out, it will be between Bulgarians and ethnic Roma.
The issue facing Bulgaria is how to stop society from turning around that particular corner. It is a difficult task. It’s complicated further by the fact that most people do not even acknowledge the existence of the problem.
Albena Shkodrova is BIRN Bulgaria Country Director. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
This article was created with the support of the US State Department and is part of the special package “Minorities in Bulgaria.”
http://www.birn.eu.com/en/93/10/3622/
18 juillet 2007
Exilia: The Blogging Teenager Who Dispeled Myths about Bulgaria’s Turks
17 07 2007 Ethnic Turkish girl is using the net to tell her fellow countrymen what life is like on the bridge between two different cultures.
By Krasimir Krumov in Shumen
"I have learned that if I suffer from being different, I won’t accomplish anything,” Nazmie writes in one of her blog posts, signed with the name Exilia.
“I have began discovering there can a be good side to this. I know an additional language, two cultures up close and am always somewhere in the middle,” she adds.
Nazmie Halim is 18 and lives in Kaspichan, a small town in north-eastern Bulgaria. As her name suggests, she belongs to Bulgaria’s sizable Turkish minority. But in her blog, where she writes about teenage love angst, friendships, and disappointments, she writes under the name Exilia, which she feels suits her.
As a member of the younger generation of Bulgarian Turks, Nazmie has inherited her family’s and her community’s collective history.
At the same time, as her blog points out, she inhabits an in-between-space between two languages, religions and cultures; between two countries even. Her blog is one way to maneuver through that space.
While she doesn’t remember the traumatic forced assimilation campaigns of the 19870s and 1980s and the mass exodus they prompted, Nazmie is aware of her own family’s experience.
According to the last census from 2001, 746,664 people, or nearly 10 per cent of Bulgaria’s population, identify themselves as ethnic Turks. Altogether, about 12 per cent of the population declared themselves as Muslims.
The Shumen district, where Kaspichan is located, is an area where many Turks are concentrated. The 2001 census said nearly 30 per cent of its inhabitants identified themselves as ethnic Turks and 35 per cent as Muslims.
Between the early Seventies and mid-Eighties, ethnic Turks here felt the full force of the so-called “Vuzroditelen”, or revival, process. The term refers to the policy of forced integration, most notably through having to change their Turkish names into Bulgarian ones.
This was followed in 1989 by the “Great Excursion”, the ironic name given to the exodus of around 370,000 ethnic Turks from Bulgaria, after the Sofia government suddenly opened the border with Turkey and “liberalized” the visa regime for Bulgarians wanting to leave.
Around 155,000 of those who left eventually returned after the fall of the communist regime. And by 1991, the more than 600,000 remaining Bulgarian Turks had all reverted to their old Turkish names.
Halim belongs to the last generation of ethnic Turks that lived through the “Big Excursion”. She was only a baby when her family left the country. But she has inherited family memories of the trauma.
When her family sold or gave away their belongings and moved to Turkey in May of 1989, she and her twin sister were not even one year old.
Her parents, she writes in her blog, “spare me many facts from the past, from 1989. This year is mentioned all the time but always in passing, always briefly. I didn’t know what it means.” Of the time spent in Turkey, her parents tell “only good memories,” she adds.
Eight months after they left, when Bulgaria’s communist regime crumbled, her parents were among the many exiles who decided to return. Their children were often ill and they were barely able to pay for medical services, which were not available to them for free in Turkey.
The decision to return to Bulgaria was finally made after her grandfather lost his eye in a work accident. “Grandfather Halim insisted the most that we return to Bulgaria,” she tells me. “Every night, he packed his bags and said, ‘Tomorrow we go!’”
As a small child, she could not follow the turbulence that accompanied the first years of democracy in Bulgaria. But when she started school in the mid-Nineties, she made an important discovery. She had once had another name.
She learned that her parents had named her Natasha. Because the “Vuzroditelen” process was at its height, they had not even considered a Turkish name. Finding that out was a big discovery. “I was really happy,” she says. “Somehow I felt equal to the others.”
One of the rare occasions she found her self asking her parents about this unhappy period in their lives was after seeing the 2005 feature film “Stolen Eyes”.
Initially, she went to see the film because of Nejat Isler, a popular Turkish actor, who is in the film, and not because of its “theme.”
But one scene touched her in particular. Against a background of Bulgarian folk music, it showed Bulgarian Turks being forced to change their names and afterwards to dance the “horo”, a traditional Bulgarian folk dance, on the town’s main square, together with members of the police.
After the film, she had questions that demanded answers. “‘Was it really like that?” she asked her mother. “She smiles and says, ‘Don’t cry, it is all in the past,” she recalls in her blog. “My father said it was much worse than the way it was represented in the film but he doesn’t go into details. It’s good that he doesn’t.”
When Halim started school she was also confronted with her ignorance of Bulgarian, as her family spoke only Turkish at home. “They were talking to me in Bulgarian and it all seemed like a big joke. I thought they were torturing me on purpose,” she remembers.
By the end of second grade she had grasped the language. But then she began understanding other things, too. In history lessons about the Ottoman period, “when the teacher was reading and explaining about some massacre… the whole class without exception would turn towards me and ask me why with their eyes. Obviously it was my fault.”
In keeping her online journal, Halim has brushed with conflict. One entry, entitled “Concerning one priest”, caused an internet row. The critical comments she made about a Bulgarian Orthodox clergyman were unexceptional. What made them contentious was the fact that they came from a Muslim.
One response read: “You are a Muslim; that’s why you’re bothered by the priest. It is normal, because for you he is a ‘gyaur’.” The word is a derogatory Turkish term for an infidel.
In her response, Halim insisted that that she always tried to see both sides of the coin. She freely admits she is not completely free of prejudice herself but adds: “I’m working on it.”
What makes her indignant are inconsistencies. One classmate, she says, claimed Bulgarians were tolerant towards other ethnic groups but “was outraged by the fact that her Turkish classmates were speaking in Turkish in school and it should not be like that”.
Halim’s blog helps to shatter some of the ethnic, religious, gender and class stereotypes prevalent in Bulgarian society, not in a purposeful way, but in passing, as she writes about daily life.
The blog has become a tool of self-discovery for its author, as well as a means to help others find more about a much misunderstood community living in their midst.
Krasimir Krumov is a correspondent for Monitor national daily from Shumen. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
This article was created with the support of the US State Department and is part of the special package “Minorities in Bulgaria.”
http://www.birn.eu.com/en/93/10/3618/
12 juillet 2007
Second phase of Reporting on Minorities Project Underway
11 07 2007 BIRN Bulgaria started the second phase of its Reporting on Minorities project in June. The first phase, which included a three-day workshop in which majority and minority journalists from national, regional an international media discussed standards, practices and ideas for media reports on minorities, was successfully completed.
BIRN Bulgaria started the second phase of its Reporting on Minorities project in June. The first phase, which included a three-day workshop in which majority and minority journalists from national, regional an international media discussed standards, practices and ideas for media reports on minorities, was successfully completed.The second phase involves the commissioning and research of seven articles on the issues faced by ethnic minorities in Bulgaria. With the assistance of BIRN Bulgaria’s editorial team, six journalists from BIRN’s local network are in the process of producing feature articles that, through personal stories, present the broader situation of some of Bulgaria’s traditional ethnic minority groups – the Roma, the Turks, the Pomaks. One article told the story of refugees, while another analysis summed up the general situation of those groups in the country.
The articles will be published on BIRN’s website in Bulgarian. After that, they will be translated in English and all Balkan Insight languages and distributed among Balkan Insight’s subscribers.
In addition, the articles, together with other training materials and information on the project, will be printed in a booklet. Available in Bulgarian and in English, it will be distributed among those who participated in the project, as well as other interested media and NGO organizations. Albena Shkodrova, BIRN Bulgaria’s director, will present the booklet to editors in regional media.
The project is supported by the US Department of State.
http://www.birn.eu.com/en/1/20/3574/
26 juin 2007
Monitoring operational programs in Bulgaria
During the national working meeting "Roma and the structural funds in Bulgaria 2007 - 2013", organized by the youth association "Diverse and equal" on 16th of June 2007 in "Rila" hotel Sofia, thirty Roma NGOs and non-formal leaders from Sofia and within the country nominated seven young educated and experienced people to participate in the activities of the Monitoring committees on the National Strategic Reference Framework and the Operational programs "Regional development", "Development of the Competitiveness of the Bulgarian Economy", "Human resources development", "Environment" and the National Strategic Plan for agricultural and rural development in Bulgaria.
Representatives of the "Ethnic and demographic issues" Department of the Council of Ministers, local authorities of Sofia and the country participated at the meeting.
The list of nominated Roma representatives will be presented to the Prime minister of Bulgaria, the ministries, responsible for the programs` implementation as well as to the Directorate Generals of the European commission.
http://www.dzeno.cz/?c_id=14756