The honorary winner of the “Hodzhazade Mehmed muhyiddin effendi” award:

ROSEN PLEVNELIEV – THE HEAD OF STATE WHO SHAKED THE HAND OF THE MUSLIMS IN BULGARIA

Rosen Plevneliev – the forth President of the Republic of Bulgaria. He took office on January 22, 2012 and completed one really very difficult mandate. In the period in which Mr. Plevneliev was a President, Bulgaria passed through a lot of serious political crisis.  Five governments were changed… but he conducted himself honourably and completed his mandate.

Those who remember his election campaign remember also his words:

“I am a President who unites” he used to say…

And he believed. He believed in what he was doing. He believed in the nation!

On the New Year’s Eve on December 31^st, 2012 in his address to the nation he used the words “faith” and “believe” several times.

Many times they heard him saying “I believe!”

He believed that the society can succeed only when it is cohesiveand solidary, i.e. when it is united, as he said.

This is the first head of state in the history of Bulgaria who visited the Grand Mufti Dr. Mustafa Hadzhi in Grand Mufti’s Office – he did this gesture at the beginning and at the end of his mandate.

He is the first Bulgarian senior official who every year during the holy month of Ramadan organized iftar dinners where he brought together at one place representatives of all religious communities, senior statesmen, presidents of political parties, ambassadors, prominent Muslim activists and ordinary citizens who profess Islam in Bulgaria. He believed that truth must be said, and he was doing that.

During one of those religious dinners he said: “I firmly stand on the side of truth and against forgetting. The dark pages of our past must not be easily erased, but carefully studied and remembered.”

Because Mr. Plevneliev is the head of state who in the most vivid manner advocated and defended human rights. Thanks to these actions in the new school textbooks the children study the unlit till now period from the recent history of Bulgaria – the time of communism which time dealt a blow with serious consequences to the religious and cultural life of the Muslims in Bulgaria. In support of this he visited the village of Pristoe and bowed before the memorial plaque of the victims of communism of Turkish origin.

He believed that hardships make us stronger and more cohesive as a nation. He believed that “Each of us can contribute to a better Bulgaria.” And as a President he said: “It is not difficult; it needs will and depends on all of us…”

He believed in “Societies, based on trust between people, in which the needy are helped, but also are created opportunities for everyone to succeed…”

He encouraged to “seek the meaning in what is positive.”

He believed that “The civil solidarity does not have religion and ethnicity, that it is the shortest way to understanding and to preservation of the democratic principles of tolerance and mutual respect.”

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0614qtcJdfM&feature=youtu.be