Situation of ethnic and Muslim minorities in Bulgaria
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 26 September 1985 (10th Sitting) (see Doc. 5444, report of the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries). Text adopted by the Assembly on 26 September 1985 (10th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Considering the right of members of ethnic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and exercise their religion, to speak their own language, to keep their traditions and customs and to preserve their national and cultural identity ;
2. Recalling that these fundamental human rights are guaranteed in particular by the Helsinki Final Act and by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ;
3. Considering the obligation of Contracting Parties to respect the rights embodied in international agreements and to guarantee the benefit of such rights to all persons coming under their control and jurisdiction ;
4. Concerned by alarming reports that members of the ethnic and Muslim minorities in Bulgaria are being deprived of the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and exercise their religion and to speak their own language ;
5. Concerned by information that the Bulgarian authorities, in their attempt at complete assimilation of the Turkish minority, have undertaken a systematic campaign in order to force the members of this minority to adopt Bulgarian names ;
6. Concerned by information about acts of violence committed by Bulgarian security forces in carrying out this campaign ;
7. Regretting that the Bulgarian authorities do not allow the international press to send journalists into the areas where such incidents are said to be taking place,
8. Calls on the Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria :
a to put an immediate end to this repressive policy, and to restore their rightful names to all members of the Turkish minority who have been obliged to change them by threat or by force ;
b to put an end to the violation of the rights of members of the ethnic and Muslim minorities in Bulgaria in social, cultural and religious matters ;
c to allow the members of these minorities to enjoy fully the rights stipulated in international agreements and in the Bulgarian Constitution ;
d to allow journalists of the international press as well as diplomats accredited in Bulgaria to visit the areas concerned ;
9. Invites the governments of the Council of Europe member states to support these requests in their contacts with the Bulgarian Government and within the framework of the Helsinki process ;
10. Authorises the Chairman of the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries and his Rapporteur to visit the areas concerned and to report back to the committee on the results of their findings for its further consideration.
