Prosecutor Refutes Claims OTOMAN Party Was Founded in Bulgaria

Ali Yuzeirov (left) pictured here wearing an Ottoman Turkish fez, and his brother Yuzeir have failed again to found a new Muslim party. Photo by BGNES

No political party named OTOMAN has been set up in Bulgaria despite claims by its wannabe founders, a prosecutor announced.

On Good Friday, the notorious brothers Ali and Yuzeir Yuzeirov failed to found their new Muslim party in the northeast city of Shumen as they failed to gather 500 founding members.

However, late Saturday the brothers claimed they held another founding meeting in the Danube town of Svishtov where they allegedly attracted the necessary number of supporters.

Their allegations were repudiated on Sunday by the Svishtov Prosecutor Kalinka Todorova as cited by dir.bg.

Todorova said that the police inspection had shown that no founding meeting had taken place in Svishtov. In her words, only 50 locals showed up at the event organized by the Yuzeirovi Brothers.

The Prosecutor also explained there was no information that the two brothers used language stirring ethnic or religious hate.

The Svishtov police had information saying the Yuzeirovi Brothers intended to attempt to hold a new founding meeting for their OTOMAN party Sunday afternoon but left the town after the officers warned them they had no permit for staging such an event.

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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