Global Voices » Bulgarian

Bulgaria: Thousands Take Part in Anti-ACTA Protests

Rayna St. — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:03:43 +0000

Hundreds of anti-ACTA protests were scheduled all over Europe for Saturday, February 11, 2012. Bulgaria was no exception. On Friday, a video [bg] calling for people to stand up against the controversial treaty was posted in the Facebook group Ние казваме “НЕ” на ACTA! / Bulgaria says “NO” to ACTA!.

On Saturday morning, the demonstrations in Bulgaria began, with hundreds gathering in front of the National Cultural Centre in the capital city of Sofia. The crowd rapidly grew, as people were marching towards the political navel of the country. (Indeed, in Sofia, the Cabinet's building, the Parliament and the Presidential palace face each other in the very centre of the capital.)

A huge crowd walking towards the Parliament in Sofia, Bulgaria, during the February 11 anti-ACTA protest. Photo by Ruslan Trad (CC-by-SA 3.0)

Global Voices author Ruslan Trad was live-streaming the protests, along with netizen Asen Genov. A video of the protesters marching ahead, by YouTube user selin4eto, is here.

People were in a great mood, despite the cold (-6°C in Sofia and streets covered with snow). User @kislorot (Anton Georgiev) tweeted [bg]:

Полицията е задържала мъж с 0,5 грама торенти.

The police has arrested a man with 0.5g of torrents.

A nice poster in the middle of the anti-ACTA rally in Sofia. Photo by Ruslan Trad (CC-by-SA 3.0)

According to one of the protesters (@reguligence, Emil A. Georgiev), there were between 5,000 and 10,000 people only in Sofia:

The anti-#ACTA protest in #Sofia went well and peacefull, for the first time in years a number between 5000-10000 gathered. #stopacta

Bulgarian blogger Eneya Worodecky distributed books she could not keep at home due to lack of space. She announced this great initiative - Дарете книга, спрете ACTA/Stop ACTA, share a book [bg] - on her blog:

Можете да дарите книги. Идеята на много компании е, че вие по-скоро сте заели за временно ползване музиката/филмите/сериалите/програмите, които използвате, че не са ваши и не можете да правите с тях каквото прецените. Само че книгите са си ваши. Вие може да ги подарите на когото решите, независимо че според идеите на АСТА това може да се погледне като нарушаване на авторските права.

Затова това, което можете да направите е, съберете книги и ги раздайте. Единственото условие е да напишете на първата страница или да сложите листче защо го правите.

You can donate books. The idea of many companies is that you rather have borrowed for temporary use the music/movies/serials/programs you use, that is they are not yours and you cannot do with them whatever you want to. But the books are yours. You can gift them to whomever you choose, although, according to ACTA's ideas, it can be seen as copyright infringement.So what you can do is collect books and distribute them. The only condition is to write on the first page or put a piece of paper in why you're doing so.

According to Worodecky, she offered ten books to people in the streets during this morning's demonstration in Sofia, and people were greatly astonished but very happy. She is currently searching for those who got the books offered, to post pictures of them, and she is inviting other people to offer, be it books or anything else they wish to offer.

: “I am searching for people who got books offered today :) Hey, if you are one of them, make a pic and upload it. And you too, offer a book or anything you like. :)” [Credit: Screenshot by the author]

Sofia was not the only city to see protests spreading: they took place in 14 other cities and towns in Bulgaria. Plovdiv, the second largest city, saw 400-500 people marching to say “No” to ACTA.

User @ivaylovs reported [bg]:

В Пловдив беше супер. Една жена попита, това протеста за #ACTA ли е? Аз казах - май този е ПРОТИВ. Може да не бяхме 4 хл., а 400, но бяхме.

It was great in Plovdiv. A woman asked: is this the protest for #ACTA? I said: seems like this one is AGAINST. We weren't 4,000, we were only 400, but we were there.

(In the end, it seems there was more like a thousand of them, rather than 400.)

Varna (photos by Valentin Stoykov are here), Pernik, and Burgas also witnessed the demonstrations, despite the cold. A famous Bulgarian writer, screenwriter and politician Lyuben Dilov, Jr. [bg] was one of those who joined the protests in Burgas, stating that the ACTA was harmful for creators, for culture in general and for the society as a whole.

As the demonstrations were taking place, many people - such as @Plamy [bg] - complained about silence in the mainstream media:

Не мога да повярвам, че хората се вдигат да протестират срещу нещо, което има толкова голямо значение за всички, а “МЕДИИТЕ” мълчат като РИБИ

I cannot believe it that people have risen and are protesting against something that is so very important for everyone, but the “MEDIA” are as silent as FISH are.

Indeed, only three online editions talked about the anti-ACTA mobilization. Furthermore, one of the principal TV channels, bTV (formerly owned by Rupert Murdoch), dedicated very little time to the ongoing protest - and were duly criticised and mocked by netizens, such as @LuboAlamanov [bg]:

Хехе, бТВ дават за хурки, но само споменаха, че “в 15 града има протести”. Фън! :)))

Hehe, bTV is telling about distaffs, but only mentioned that “there are protests in 15 towns.” Fun! :)))

In front of the People's Assembly. The writing on the building reads: "Unity makes strength". Photo by Ruslan Trad (CC-by-SA 3.0)

In the end, people were even more motivated to stand against the treaty.

User @yradunchev (Yordan Radunchev) wrote [bg]:

прибрах се. краката ми са ледени, но ми е топло от вътре. толкова много хора не съм очаквал. #ACTA няма да я бъде, ако действаме все така.

Back home. My feet are frozen, but I feel warm inside. I didn't expect so many people. #ACTA won't make it if we all act this way.

User @yovko (Yovko Lambrev) added [bg]:

Има надежда! Никога не съм си представял, че толкова много хора в този кучи студ ще излязат в защита на Интернет! #ACTA #fb

There is hope! I never thought that so many people in this bitchy cold would go out to defend the Internet! #ACTA #fb

On his blog Tabakoff.eu, Dimitar Tabakov swiftly uploaded his pictures [bg] from Sofia. At the end of the posting, he pointed out:

Добре щеше да е някой народен представител да излезне и да каже нещо, но уви, толкова им е достойнството.

It would have been good if some MP had come out and said something, but, alas, this is how far their dignity goes.

Indeed, no official declaration has been issued so far. Will the government take into account the people's “NO” - or will they pass over and adopt the unpopular regulation anyway?

And even though much remains to be done, Saturday's mobilization has definitely showed a breach in the Bulgarians' apathy wall.

Bulgaria: Human Rights Organizations Against a Neo-Nazi March

Ruslan Trad — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:27:18 +0000

The civic initiative “People Against Racism” is appealing [en] to the Municipality of Sofia and the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria with the request to ban an international neo-Nazi racist conference scheduled for Feb. 17 and a neo-Nazi torchlight procession known as the “Lukov March” on Feb. 18. Every year since 2005, Bulgaria's far-right, neo-Nazi, and ultra-nationalist groups have commemorated the death of Gen. Hristo Lukov, who supported Nazi Germany during WWII. Lukov March 2011 drew protests from many civic groups and human rights organizations, including the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith, and People Against Racism. (More about Lukov March; a 2010 video.)

Bulgaria: Severe Flooding Emergency

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:57:45 +0000

GV Author Ruslan Trad is tweeting - here, here, here, and here - about the severe flooding in southern Bulgaria, which was caused by heavy rainfall of the past few days and has killed at least eight people in the village of Bisser. The latest tweet came about an hour ago: “Breaking: Maritsa River’s dike broke close to the village of Generalovo, municipality of Svilenhrad, huge wave.” More photos from the disaster in the village of Bisser - at the Facebook page [bg] of the Bulgarian National TV's fundraising effort to help the victims.

Bulgaria: Protests Against Shale Gas Exploration

Ruslan Trad — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:57:50 +0000

On Jan. 14, some 15,000 protesters came out in the streets of at least 12 Bulgarian cities, as well as in London, Paris and Copenhagen, to call for a moratorium on shale gas tests through hydraulic fracturing and to demand a new law that would ban this potentially dangerous practice. Facebook group “We are against a Bulgarian Chernobyl - shale gas exploration” [bg] now has nearly 56,000 members; a photo from the rally in Sofia, posted by one of the group's members, is here. One of the videos from the rally is here.

Bulgaria: 30,000 Protest Against Cuts and Pension Reform

Ruslan Trad — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:30:16 +0000

According to the trade unions, between 25,000 and 30,000 people protested in Sofia on Wednesday against the new pension reform, social cuts and the cancellation of the majority of trains in the country (a photo; videos - here and here). The police sent to contain the rally supported the people's demands by wearing ribbons in the colors of the Bulgarian national flag on their uniforms. MPs from the ruling party tried to talk with the protestors, but were booed. The protests will continue because of the cancelation of talks between the government and the trade unions.

Bulgaria: New Protest Against Shale Gas Planned

Ruslan Trad — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:41:16 +0000

A new protest is being planned for Nov. 26 in Sofia, part of a series of protests against Chevron's shale gas extraction in northeast Bulgaria. On Nov. 20, nearly 500 people attended a rally in the coastal city of Varna, which didn't receive adequate media coverage. Several Facebook groups have been created: Sofia: BULGARIA can count on us - not shale gas! [bg, 740 members], We are against a Bulgarian Chernobyl - shale gas extraction [bg, 30,815 members].

Bulgaria: Protest Against Shale Gas Extraction

Ruslan Trad — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:05:38 +0000

The Nov. 16 protest against Chevron's extraction of shale gas in northeast Bulgaria had been organized through Facebook event. The poster on this photo reads: “Why did you sign, Boyko [PM Borisov's first name] - out of stubbornness?” Protesters chanted slogans against the government, calling them “traitors” because of the signed agreement for extraction of shale gas.

Bulgaria: #OccupyBulgaria on Oct. 15

Ruslan Trad — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:24:02 +0000

Bulgarian activists announced that they would join in the global #Ocuppy action on Oct. 15. There is a Facebook event and a group call for action, real democracy and #OccupyBulgaria. The activists have been inspired by the protests in Greece, the United States and Spain.

Bulgaria: Clashes Between Roma and Ethnic Bulgarians in Katunitsa

Ruslan Trad — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:55:39 +0000

Violent clashes in the Bulgarian village of Katunitsa, near Plovdiv, broke out Friday night, following the death of a 19-year-old ethnic Bulgarian local, Angel Petrov, who had been run over by a vehicle driven by a man linked to the local Roma clan leader.

According to Focus Information Agency:

127 people were arrested in the southern village of Katunitsa where Bulgarian and Roma communities entered into clashes, following a fatal road accident involving relatives of a Roma boss - Kiril Rashkov, dubbed Tsar Kiro. The arrested were indicted for vandalism, arson and numerous other offences.

The clashes involving some 2,000 people started when relatives of a teenager who was run over by a Rashkov family vehicle attacked the Roma patriarch's home. Another person died and five others were injured.

Three policemen and two civilians were hurt in the riots, while a 16-year-old at the scene who suffered from heart problems was taken to hospital, where he later died. […]

Online responses to the riots reflect very well the dangerous tensions on the ground.

On Facebook, there is a page [bg] demanding death to the Roma boss Kiril Rashkov (”An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.)” - and more than 23,000 people appear to “like” this cause.

One of the page members wrote:

We are Bulgarians, we are in Bulgaria - enough of this torment! In our own country we feel as foreigners! They want war? We will give them war!

Another Facebook page [bg] has been created in support of the ethnic Bulgarian rioters arrested in Katunitsa - as of now, 41,001 people have “liked” this page.

Riot police in the village of Katunitsa. Photo by Georgi Kozhuharov/Dnevnik.bg, used with permission.

Hot debates are taking place elsewhere on Facebook as well. On the Anti-Racism Movement in Bulgaria page, people have reported more than ten pages and groups with hate-speech content. One member of the Anti-Racism Movement wrote [bg]:

Racism is awful because of the association of ethnicity with crime. There is a proverb saying “Because of our Elijah, I started to hate Saint Elijah” [”Pokrai nash Iliq namrazih i Sveti Iliq.”] Rashkov (Tzar Kiro) is one of the many criminals and traffickers in Bulgaria and he uses the ethnicity trump card without a second thought. If the authorities take care of this kind of criminals by legal means then this will reduce many times the ethnicity tensions, which are created by the same criminals to affirm their control over the given minority.

One of the places where people are organizing protests against the Roma people is the Facebook fan page [bg] of the football team “Botev” (Plovdiv). One of the fan group's members wrote this [bg]:

The dirty Roma scum must be cleaned!

On the Bulgarian blog Bai Dalai [bg], the author wrote another opinion:

It is easy to see that this is an uprising against the painful social injustices, against the fact that the authorities are protecting the rich criminals but they are unable to provide basic security for the common people.

On Twitter, @lazarov (Alexei Lazarov) wrote [bg]:

Racial clashes in Katunitsa, Putin will run for president again - time sometimes seems to be moving backwards.

Bulgaria: Meeting to Support Palestine's UN Bid

Ruslan Trad — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:39:56 +0000

A silent meeting in support of Palestine's bid for a UN seat and independence took place in Sofia on Sep. 20, organized by the Bulgarian-Palestinian Association for Friendship and Development. There was coverage by Press TV and here are photos from the event on Facebook (Bulgaria to support independent Palestine in UN).

Bulgaria: Ruling Party Uses Children's Holiday Posters in Election Campaign

Ruslan Trad — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:49:45 +0000

Bulgaria's ruling party GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) has been using children's holiday posters in the city of Plovdiv in their campaign for the upcoming Oct. 23 presidential election. This poster, posted in the Facebook group of the left-wing Solidarna Bulgaria (Solidarity Bulgaria), shows how the ruling party has been campaigning in violation of the Bulgarian laws, which prohibit the use of propaganda in schools, universities and other public places for children.

Bulgaria: Mapping Crime and Electoral Violations

Ruslan Trad — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:16:19 +0000

Bulgarian blogger Boyan Yurukov has set up Bulgaria's first Ushahidi-based site, Crime.bg, whose goal is to collect signals of crimes and irregularities, via the site itself as well as through mobile applications, Twitter and Facebook. On his blog, Yurukov explained the reasons [bg] for creating Crime.bg: “1. People's lack of trust in police; and 2. Lack of open public data on crime rates in Bulgaria.” Crime.bg has inspired other activists in Bulgaria to use Ushahidi: e.g., Izboren Kodeks (”Election Code”), a web initiative to track violations in the electoral process.

Bulgaria: A Day Without PM Boyko Borisov

Veni Markovski — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:17:29 +0000

July 5, 2011, presented an interesting challenge to the traditional Bulgarian media: would they follow a Facebook appeal for “A Day Without Boyko Borisov” [bg; the page is currently unavailable, as after the end of the event the organizers decided to delete it, in order to avoid spam] - or would they continue to report on the activities of Bulgaria's Prime Minister?

Reuters noticed the Facebook event, and let it run through its cable, under the title that fit quite well with the intent of the organizers: “Bulgarians beg for a day without busy PM Borisov.”

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. Image by Flickr user kaladan (CC BY-SA 2.0).

However, the Bulgarian media, with the two memorable exceptions - news agency BGNES and Internet site Mediapool - did not follow the initiative and continued to feature the PM in their news items. Bulgarian blogger and former member of the Parliament Borislav Tsekov shared BGNES' opinion in full, just saying “completely agree.” Other bloggers also noticed and wrote about the initiative, sometimes with ironic and sarcastic comments or titles of their publications, aimed at the Prime Minister.

In a very passionate and sad entry, Nelly of Politics is arts was quite critical [bg] towards the Bulgarian media, asking why “do I have to read news from foreign sites, watch foreign tv stations, and prefer the bloggers' opinions, instead that of the journalists.”

Prime Minister Borisov himself announced that he was not interested in such events, and then immediately commented that the organizers were being paid by the opposition. One of the organizers of the event, Mr. Atanas Palov, noted that this is ridiculous, and joked that if the prime minister pays enough, they could create an alternative “One day with Boyko Borisov” event.

The three young people (the other two are Ms. Kamelia Encheva and Ms. Valia Krusheva) who had come up with the idea denied any political involvement; one of them lives in Austria, one in Belgium, and one in Bulgaria, and they do not seem to be politically motivated.

The date of July 5 was chosen because it marked two years since the 2009 elections, in which Borisov was the winner.

After the end of the event, the organizers published an open letter, in which they explained that the initiative was not aimed against the Prime Minister, but rather towards the attention the Bulgarian media give to Boyko Borisov. At the same time, they acknowledged that the idea had been borrowed from the Italian “No Berlusconi Day” and the Polish “Day Without Smolensk“.

Macedonia: Views from Abroad on Protests Against Police Violence

Filip Stojanovski — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:18:50 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Macedonia Protests 2011.

Ordinary people's reactions to the protests against police brutality in Macedonia indicate the strength of the grip of the traditional media, which is not very keen on relaying such “unpopular” news, and highlights the opportunities for solidarity once the information gets through.

Jovana Tozija, a Macedonian woman residing in Germany, wrote [mk, en] about the reactions of her friends:

Many of my international friends asked what’s going on in Macedonia after they saw me spamming on Facebook with links to sites with strange letters and when they saw that I'd changed my profile picture. I briefly explained to them the incident with the murder of Martin Neshkovski. Here are their responses and my personal analysis of their initial instant reactions.

A Russian woman: So? The police killed a man. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? There is nothing you can do about it.

Obviously, the awareness about freedom of speech in this country is not on the highest level. I don’t know if it is because they are afraid or because it is not developed enough. But I do know that there is over-centralized power of the oligarchs and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

An Iranian man: Only one person was killed?

This was his instant reaction. It’s not easy for him as well. He has seen worse. Last year, during the green revolution in Iran, the government was killing young people, just because [Ahmadinejad] would not recognize the electoral fraud. A bunch of progressive young people were protesting and they failed. Many of them were killed and Ahmadinejad is still in power.

A German woman: How can it be that for 2 days it was not known who the boy was and the case was not reported?

The people of this country are used to the fact that the institutions do their job by default. She was not interested in how a member of the special police units could kill a young man, but how the case could stumble throughout the institutions.

A Croatian man: OMG, the police is going to send us to our graves.

I don’t have a comment on this and don’t know what to think about it. I suppose he is a proponent of the [ACAB] theory.

Bulgarian blogger Yurukov wrote [bg] on his blog several days after protests started:

Why no Bulgarian media have informed about this protest for a week? Why do I have to learn about it from Twitter, and only because by chance I follow several Macedonians? What are they waiting for? An official position from the Ministry of the Interior or from [Prime Minister Boyko Borisov]? Has it come that far? Are we afraid that the media would be blamed for inciting unrest if the protests spread to Bulgaria? Why even the publications that are considered freer keep silent? Or should we wait for the news to become popular, so we can talk about it?

Yurukov noted that in the week after the protests started, only two internet portals published information in Bulgarian: Dir.bg and News.bg. (In addition, these two exceptional media outlets did not post follow-up articles in the next few weeks.)

The website Stop police violence published an article [mk/sr] about the support for the protests from the female choir “Kombinat” [sl] from Slovenia:

We are sending a photo of support, taken during our concert in [Celje], dedicated to you, who protest against police brutality in Macedonia. We'll send you [a petition] signed at the concert. People in Slovenia have no idea what's going on in Macedonia, because the media do not write or speak about it… Accept our solidarity and support, we are with you in our thoughts and hearts…

No Pasaran!

Kombinat concert in Celje, Slovenia. Photo by Kombinat, used with permission.

Macedonian protesters keep inviting people from abroad to show their support for the protests by writing or making videos about them.

This post is part of our special coverage Macedonia Protests 2011.

Bulgaria: E-Book On Internet and Mobile Tracking

Ruslan Trad — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:06:45 +0000

Bulgarian blogger and Internet activist Bogomil Shopov allows to download his latest e-book [bg; .pdf], which is about Internet tracking in Bulgaria and ways to avoid it. The e-book is 13 pages long and covers legal aspects of the monitoring, explains how the state is tracking Internet and mobile phone users and how to oppose it legally, and supplies examples of the actual use of the data collected on the individuals.