50,000 Immigrants to Return.

Standartnews
Krastina Marinova

50,000 ethnic Turks will come back to Bulgaria in case this country be admitted into the EU and Turkey would not be given a road map for joining the EU structures, said MRF MP Ahmed Usein in Dobrich. He also admitted that the MRF lost because of those ethnic Turks with dual citizenship who came back to cast their ballots at the local elections, as the fact boosted the voting activity of the rest of the political formations.

Bulgarian TV Channel "Closed Down over Racial Intolerance"

Novinite.com
Top news: 4 November 2003, Tuesday

Bulgaria's state Council for Electronic Media (CEM) launched a procedure for closing down private Den TV channel after a "racial discrimination" scandal was prompted by a Den live broadcast, Bulgaria's Dnevnik daily wrote.

The channel's management was already imposed a BGN 15,000 ticket due to the controversial comment that German-descended TV host Nick Stein has made. He criticized the refusal of a member of the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), junior partner in the country's ruling coalition, to speak in Bulgarian at a press conference. The member of the ethnic-Turks dominated party chose to speak in his mother language instead, which aroused Stein's criticism.

The following raid against Den was initiated the Council's Chairman Raycho Raykov. However, he was opposed by CEM member Georgi Lozanov, who claimed that closing down Den would be interpreted as a political decision, Dnevnik revealed.

The TV channel's owner Denka Ivanova is set to be ready for appealing against an eventual court decision in favor of the CEM.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=27791

Bulgarian TV Channel Closedown Case "Goes to Court"

Novinite.com
Politics: 12 November 2003, Wednesday

The court will have to rule out whether the decision of Bulgaria's Council for Electronic Media (CEM) to close the Den TV channel was right, CEM Chairman Raycho Raykov has said Wednesday.

Last week, the Council revoked the registration of Den operator Union Television, after a controversial comment made by German-descended host Nick Stein. According to some CEM members, including Raykov himself, Stein's words provoked "racial intolerance." The TV host criticized the refusal of a member of ethnic Turks Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), junior partner in the country's ruling coalition, to speak in Bulgarian at a press conference.

However, some members of the council, as well as other experts and journalists, stood against the CEM move, saying that the measure was too drastic. Some even claimed that there were political reasons behind the Council's decision.

Euro Court Rejects Ethnic Turks Claim against Bulgaria.

Novinite.com
Politics: 28 April 2005, Thursday

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected the claim of Bulgarian ethnic Turks who want to sue Bulgaria over the "assimilating policy" during the Regeneration Period in the 1980s.

Over 140 Bulgarian exiles currently living in Turkey filed suits against Bulgaria to the European Court of Human Rights at the beginning of August. They claim that Bulgaria's current government is reluctant to restore their confiscated property.

The Strasbourg-based court turned down the claim, saying that the agreement for human rights protection in Europe had not yet taken force at the time.

In the 1980s Bulgaria's government launched an internationally condemned campaign to assimilate the Turkish minority by forcing its members to adopt Slavic names. Hundreds of Turks then emigrated to Turkey, most in the summer of 1989.

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Vaya con Dios!