Commission for Protection against Discrimination with proceedings against prosecutor Nedyalka Popova

“No freedom for hate speech”
 Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd.

At the end of the last week the Commission for Protection against Discrimination (CPD) opened proceedings in connection with the anti-Muslim statement of Prosecutor Nedyalka Popova – supervising prosecutor of the case against the 13 imams in Pazardzhiik. We would like to recall that during an interview for the local media “TrafikNews” she made inadmissible statements about the Muslims in our country.

According to the information from CPD the signal to the Commission is submitted by the journalist Lora Fileva from “Dnevnik” newspaper.

Meanwhile a check with regard to the same statements of Prosecutor Nedyalka Popova during the interview for “TrafikNews” has also begun the Inspectorate of the Prosecutor’s Office. According to the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov the information reached to him through several channels – through the media and through the official signals from Grand Mufti’s Office and other parties.

“Prosecutor Nedyalka Popova made a statement in which she distinguished the citizens to Christians and Muslims, and not to Christians and Muslims, the actions of whom have been subjected to investigations and now are a subject to a criminal proceedings in the criminal proceedings where she is a supervising prosecutor”, said with regard to this the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov. - “In a very inacceptable manner she puts the Bulgarian citizens in opposition to each other. A subject of investigation is the professing of radical Islam and extremist ideology, and not just a particular religion. Such statements for me are extremely inadmissible, especially when are from a prosecutor” – is also said in the comments of Tsatsarov related to the statements of Popova.

After the statement of Porsecutor Nedyalka Popova the Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) disseminated an official “Open letter with regard to the Islamophobic and anti-Muslim statement of Prosecutor Nedyalka Popova”, addressed to the President, to the President of the National Assembly, to the Prime Minister and to a number to representatives of the state’s authorities and representatives of European institutions.

Author: L. Chausheva