Local Rightists Slam Bulgaria Govt over Remembrance of 'Revival Process'

Lyutvi Mestan, Deputy Chair of the ethnic Turkish Party DPS gives a speech during the Revival Process remembrance in Mogilyane. Photo by BGNES

Local right-wing activities in the city of Kardzhali have slammed the ruling party GERB and its rightist supporters over the recent remembrance ceremonies of the so called ‘Revival Process’.

The “Revival Process” (also translated as “Regeneration Process”) was a campaign launched in the late 1980s by the Bulgarian communist regime in order to assimilate the ethnic Turkish minority including by forcing its members to adopt Slavic names.

According to the rightists in Kardzhali, whose region has a large ethnic Turkish population, the ruling party GERB allowed the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) to monopolize the remembrance events turning them into events of its own.

“We are indignant and react very strongly to the absence of representatives of the government at those events because we believe that the Revival Process did damage not only to the Bulgarian Turks but also to our entire nation. The remembrance has been left to turn into a political event of the DPS,” a declaration of the rightists in Kardzhali reads.

It slams the Kardzhali District Governor Ivanka Taushanova for failing to show up or send condolences to the remembrance event which took place in the village of Mogilyane on Friday. “Thus, once again, the grief of the Bulgarian Turks was monopolized by the DPS, by these agents and collaborators of the former State Security service clouted today in their MP roles,” the local rightists stated.

They further explain that people from the ethnic minorities in Bulgaria could not start to believe in the intentions of the new leaders because there is no clear position of the government on the “Revival Process”.

The local dissenters, many of whom are members of the GERB party, believe that this situation is the result of the fact that the ruling party is dependent on the nationalist party Ataka for its Parliamentary majority.

They have stated that the idea for holding a referendum on the Turkish-language news emissions on the Bulgarian National TV supported by PM Borisov had been a huge mistake that could lead to ethnic tension and a collapse of Bulgaria’s image before the EU.

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