Bulgarian Parliament Lets Prosecution of Communist Crimes Expire

DPS MP Chetin Kazak`s proposal for dropping the statute of limitations for crimes committed by the communist regime was rejected.

Bulgaria's Parliament has refused to drop the statute of limitations for murder, torture and violence committed on political, ethnic or religious grounds in the period September 9, 1944, to December 31, 1989.

MPs of the ruling center-right party GERB have voted against the motion even though its government recently initiated the first official Day of Gratitude and Homage to the Victims of the Communist Regime marked on February 1.

According to Chetin Kazak, a MP from the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (DPS), who initiated the rejected proposal, the idea is to retain punishment for such crimes regardless of the time that has passed since their commitment.

"Bulgaria is lagging behind with the prosecution of crimes against peace and humanity, given that its national legislation qualifies only genocide and apartheid as such", Kazak explained.

In his words, crimes like forced deportation, placement into communist labor camps and ethnic or religious persecution have remained unpunished 20 years after the fall of communism.

The lawsuits have been terminated due to the expiration of the statutes of limitation, following culpable inaction on the part of magistrates, Kazak clarified.

In parliament, the DPS MP insisted on dropping the statute of limitations for crimes against humanity committed by the communist regime, which, however, failed to win the approval of the majority. The proposal was rejected, then Kazak insisted on a second vote, which once again came negative.

The investigations of the crimes against humanity of the Bulgarian communist regime refer to a number of incidents and even state policies such as the so called People's Court in 1945-1947 or the so called Revival Process (or Regeneration Process) in the late 1980s, among others.

The People's Court was formed by the government of the Fatherland Front, an umbrella group of leftist parties which committed a pro-Soviet coup on September 9, 1944, as the Soviet Army was advancing into Bulgaria. By 1947, the Bulgarian Communist Party had fully taken control by the Fatherland Front from within. The People's Court was supposed to try those responsible for Bulgaria's alliance with Nazi Germany in World War II but its verdicts were also directed against the Bulgarian bourgeois elite at the time.

The so called Revival Process was a campaign of the communist regime in the late 1980s to force Bulgarian Muslims, including ethnic Turks, to take up Slavic Christian names.

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