Declaration of protest of Grand Mufti’s Office in defense of “Kurshum mosque”

We, the representatives of the Bulgarian citizens, professing Islam, support the peaceful protest of our brothers from Karlovo in defense of “Kurshum mosque”.
We  strongly condemn the illegitimate and antidemocratic efforts of the representatives of the local authorities to change the designation of “Kurshum mosque” by fabricating artefacts allowing them to legitimate their self-interested ambitions.
This act of the local authorities represented by their managing bodies is a pure islamophobic impulse aiming to turn the mosque into a museum, and also is unacceptable discriminating approach with which one more time the Muslim community in the country is rudely provoked. The multiplication of similar cases in different settlements with a single subject to follow - Muslim temples, deeply offends the Muslims in the country.
The permanent violations towards temples and the attempts to change their designation is a clear sign for antidemocratic and irrational management approach corresponding to the traditions of the feudal system.
What is happening in “Kurshum mosque” in Karlovo, “Karadzha Pasha” in Gotse Delchev, “Bayrakla Mosque” in Samokov, “Fatih Mehmed” mosque in Kyustendil, “Makbul Ibrahim Pasha” in Razgrad, “Hamza Bey” in Stara Zagora, the mosque of Mihaloglu in Ihtiman creates discontent among the Muslim community, which ignites with every new case of antidemocratic, Islamophobic and antagonistic behavior against the community and the sacred for it things.
From the height of its responsibility Grand Mufti’s Office calls upon the authorities to undertake adequate measures through which to solve the problems of the Muslim community in the country, and not to deepen them.
We call upon all cultural actors, petitioners and guardians of the cultural heritage, not to be a tool for the destruction of one religious and historical relic, by servicing infantile ambitions.
We call upon all who attach importance to human rights and democratic and European values regardless their political views, to support this peaceful initiative in defense of the fundamental human rights.