Bulgarian University Students Call New Anti-Govt Rally Nov 20

Bulgarian university students, who are protesting with demands for the resignation of the Socialist-backed government, partially lifted the blockade of Sofia University Monday morning, file photo BGNES

Protesting Bulgarian "Early Risers" university students are staging a new mass protest rally on Wednesday, November 20.

The rally starts at 11 am on the square in front of the building of the Parliament in downtown Sofia. The announcement was made through a declaration adopted late Sunday evening.

In it, the organizers of the occupation of Sofia University, which was staged with demands for the resignation of the Socialist-led government, are urging all students and teachers to join the rally.

Early Monday morning, the protesting students opened for classes for the first time since the end of October the main campus of Bulgaria's oldest and most prestigious school.

They said the "occupation" is still in place, but it will be now held only in the aula of Sofia University in order to no longer interfere with the learning process and give opportunity to those who want to study to do so.

The decision was also made late Sunday evening after hours-long discussions.

In the declaration, the students, however, warn that any provocation attempt will lead to reinstating the full blockade of the main building of Sofia University.

"For 26 days we proved we respect our campus as we leave it clean and undamaged," they also write.

The first of the protests began when students at the elite Sofia University occupied Lecture Hall 272, the largest teaching room in the St. Kliment Ohridski building on October 22.

They have been blockading the building since then, bringing classes to a halt, but decided to move the blockade to the Parliament last Tuesday, which led to violent clashes with riot police.

Protesters against the Oresharski cabinet first walked out, June 14, after the appointment of controversial media mogul Delyan Peevski for head of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security.

Peevski's reinstatement as MP after his resignation from the Security Agency provoked a student occupation at Sofia University, which culminated in Sunday's "March of Justice."

Protesters have claimed that the Oresharski cabinet, backed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the liberal Movement for Rights and Freedoms exemplifies in an acute form the deep influence of the so-called Bulgarian oligarchy on politics.

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