Bulgaria Muslims Prevent Founding of OTOMAN Party in Famed Mosque

Notorious brothers are bound to found new OTOMAN party in the Bulgarian city of Shumen despite opposition from the local Muslim community, photo by BGNES

The Muslim community in the northeast Bulgarian city of Shumen will not allow the notorious Yuzeirovi brothers to set up their new OTOMAN party in the famed Tombul Mosque.

The two brothers, Ali Yuzeirov and Yuzeir Yuzeirov, will make do with a conference hall in the local “Shumen” hotel instead, Shumen Mayor Krasimir Kostov has announced.

Kostov defined the decision of the wannabe politicians to found their party on April 2, which is Good Friday for Orthodox Christians, as a “pure provocation.”

The brothers have responded to the accusation by saying that they have chosen that day because of the traditional Friday's Muslim prayer.

In order to prevent clashes between rival groups, Mayor Kostov has banned any rallies or manifestations on the day in question.

He claims that some of the founders of the new party are residents of Shumen, currently living in Belgium and France, who are financed by Muslim extremists.

“It is quite indicative that the leaders of the Muslim community in Shumen wants to have nothing to do with the founders of the party and refuse to grant them access to the Tombul Mosque,” declared Kostov.

OTOMAN is an abbreviation in Bulgarian which stands for “Union for tolerance, responsibility, moral, and alternative progress.” Yet the party's name bears uncanny connotation to the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria's bitter past under Turkish dominion.

The founders of the new OTOMAN party claim that its main goal is to promote religious and ethnic tolerance. Their similar initiatives in the summer and fall of 2009 have been slammed by many commentators as attempts to stir ethnic and religious tension and a test to the stability of Bulgarian democracy and of the Borisov government.

In the fall of 2009 the two brothers erected a monument of the Unknown Turkish/Muslim Soldier near Targovishte, which was torn down by the authorities after court action.

Again in 2009 Yuzeir Yuzeirov was refused registration of his “Muslim Democratic Union” party because it was based on religious and ethnic principles and hence unconstitutional.

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