C.D.C.

Valeri Simeonov literally talked about creating modern concentration camps, and in 2016, when speaking of Bulgaria’s Roma minority, he told the parliament: “They are brazen, feral, human-like creatures that demand pay without work, and collect sickness benefits without being sick. They receive child benefits for children that play with pigs on the street, and for women that have the instincts of stray dogs.” His party has literally called for the demolition of “Gypsy ghettos” and for Roma to be instead isolated in closed reservations that could “generate income as tourist attractions”

Asides from this Ilian Todorov from the far-right ATAKA party (ultranationalist, racist, especially antisemitic and anti-Roma, xenophobic, especially anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish) is now Bulgaria, Sofia’s regional governor. 

The opposition party, Yes Bulgaria, warned that this “toxic national-populism” can only divide society and “heighten the risk of stirring up ethnic enmity” when we have already long gone past the “risk” stage as proven by recent submissions of the European Roma Rights Center and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee – Both reports detail recent violent events which include mass attempts to storm Roma neighbourhoods, an increase in hate speech, failures by the authorities to deal properly with racially motivated hate crime, as well as incidents such as the brutal assault in April by police of a Romani father and son outside the village of Bohot in Pleven province. The son sustained serious injuries, but his father died at the scene of this assault. The authorities justified the police action by claiming that the men were found in possession of stolen pesticides and had resisted arrest.

The former vice-deputy of the ATAKA party, went on TV to praise the police for “neutralising the two thieves,” for sending a clear message, and spreading the kind of fear that will cause “all crooks and thieves to lay down.”

The situation of Roma in Bulgaria is worsening. And if those events listed are not enough already Roma are still racially segregated in education and housing, being forcefully evicted and having their properties demolished as well.