By Greg Hall
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
SOFIA, Bulgaria – About two thousand protesters marched into Bulgaria’s capital city of Sofia in anti-Roma protests. Prejudices against Roma in Bulgaria and intolerance to daily crime and impunity after several serious incidents have triggered a series of national demonstrations that have increased ethnic tensions. The nationalistic party, Ataka, held demonstrations protesting against the impunity of Roma.
There has been an increase in protests recently due to a death of a youth hit by a car driven by relatives of a Roma clan boss. Following the accident, an angry crowd of roughly 2,000 people attacked three houses owned by the Roma leader in the village. Smaller protests occurred in other towns the following week.
National Security Council President, Georgi Parvanov, called on political parties and the media to cease using hate speech. He also announced that a Roma inclusion program would begin in November and was being funded by the European Union and the Bulgarian government. The time could not have come any later, as opinion polls state that 69% of Bulgarians rule out the possibility of having Roma friends and 63% find it unacceptable to live in the same neighborhood as them.
Volen Siderov, Ataka’s far right candidate, is calling for the death penalty to be reinstated and for Roma “ghettos to be dismantled.” The recent violence in Bulgaria has been called the worst since the violence that took place in 1997.
This violence demonstrates the struggles of the Bulgarian country. Bulgaria is the poorest country in the European Union. Roma makes up only 5% of the population in Bulgaria. The attacks triggered worries that Bulgarian Turks, the county’s largest minority at almost 10%, will also become subject to attacks. As of now, a great majority of the attacks have been directed only at the Roma.
All of these protests and attacks come just three weeks before the Bulgarian presidential elections. Some fear that a few civil servants that are Bulgarian Turks will be forced to work for the governing party’s electoral campaign. Roma Rangel Palamoudov stated that the nationalist parties are inciting young people to turn against them so they can win the election.
The Roma community lives mostly in depressed areas with higher rates of poverty and unemployment and lower levels of education than the national average. Public frustration against corruption, a growing gap between rich and poor and the weakness of the justice system has helped turn people against the Roma, as well as against Bulgaria’s Turkish minority.
The unemployment rate among Roma is 65% and as high as 80% in some other regions. The prejudice and distorted perception of Roma coupled together with low levels of education make it extremely difficult for Roma to get jobs. It is also believed that quality of education to Roma children is inferior to that afforded to other students.
For more information, please see:
Hurriyet Daily News – Turks Worry as Bulgarian Nationalists Rally Ahead of Polls – 3 October 2011
iFocus – European Press Review – 3 October 2011
BBC News – Bulgarian Rally links Roma to Organised Crime – 1 October 2011
