‘Cheap populism’ forbidding ‘LGBT propaganda’ for Bulgarian children

Originally published on Global Voices

“Enough is enough – Open your mouth!” Demonstration against homophobia in Russia in 2013. Photo by Marco Fieber via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

On August 7, the Bulgarian parliament adopted amendments to the Preschool and School Education Act proposed by the far-right, pro-Russian Revival party, which prohibit “propaganda” for “non-traditional sexual orientations” in schools, sparking outrage and protests. Liberal politicians, civil society and LGBTQ+ activists warned  that it mirrors similar legislation passed in Russia and Hungary in recent years.

Bulgaria's largest human rights organization, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), noted that the adoption of the amendments means that “effectively, any situation in which any information about homosexuality, bisexuality, or a transgender condition is provided, whether scientific or not, in any aspect of the preschool or school education system, irrespective of the grade, will be in violation of the law.”

The adopted and published law that came into force on August 16 literally “forbids…”

Извършване на пропаганда, популяризиране или подстрекаване по какъвто и да е начин, пряко или косвено, на идеи и възгледи, свързани с нетрадиционна сексуална ориентация и/или определяне на полова идентичност, различна от биологичната.

Conducting propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or determination of gender identity other than the biological

The amendment proposed by far-right ultranationalists was passed by a large majority backed by populist parties that declare themselves pro-European Union, as well as all the independent deputies, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reported on August 7. They quoted Elizabeta Belobradova, MP from the liberal anti-corruption coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria, who commented during the  parliamentary debate:

Когато взимаме текстове от Уикипедия, за да правим закони, не е дясно ориентирано, не е консервативно ориентирано и не е защита на българските деца, а е евтин популизъм.

When we take texts from Wikipedia to make laws, what we get is not right-wing oriented and not conservative-oriented legislation, and it is not protection of Bulgarian children, but cheap populism.

RFE also reported that Georgi Georgiev, MP from populist right wing party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), criticized the amendments as “unheard of precedent in an EU member state,” enabling discrimination directly opposing the European Convention on Human Rights, and also criticized the haste of the procedure. 

In total, 135 out of 240 MPs voted in favor. “Support from the pro-Moscow Bulgarian Socialist Party was expected, but the bill passed largely because of the surprising backing of the pro-EU centre-right GERB party,” Balkan Insight reported.  

LGBTQ+ organization Deystvie warned that “Bulgaria is taking Russia’s path” and also noted that some of the MPs “used hate speech  and totally discriminatory statements, which tendentiously undermine the foundations of democracy and rule of law” and can be sanctioned under the Law for Protection from Discrimination. 

On August 9, feminist, LGBTQ+ and other human rights groups organized a protest outside the Bulgarian parliament  to call for a reversal of the amendment, which bans what its supporters call “LGBTQ+ propaganda in schools.” Waving the LGBTQ+ flag, protesters chanted slogans like “Veto the law!” Euronews reported. 

On August 15, Deutche Welle reported that Bulgarian president Rumen Radev announced that the didn’t veto the amendments on the Preschool and School Education Act, “contrary to the appeals of the European institutions, nongovernmental organizations and activists.” 

The president’s decision incited a protest in front of the presidency during that evening. At the same time, the political party Revival staged a counterprotest under the slogan “NO to gender propaganda! Yes to normality!” reported Novini.bg.  

Not just a Bulgarian issue

The BHC explained that, while the amendments do not encompass any specific sanctions, they would be enforced through disciplinary proceedings against teachers, school principals, school nurses, school psychologists, or any public servant of the Ministry of Education. They will also curb access to schools for civil society organizations, the national equality body or health authorities willing to work on the prevention of discrimination or the promotion of sexual health.

Politico quoted Rémy Bonny, executive director of Forbidden Colours, an EU-wide LGBTQ+ rights group based in Belgium, who said that:

This law is not just a Bulgarian issue — this is a Russian law that has found its way into the heart of Europe… The European Commission must step in and hold Bulgaria accountable.

“International institutions are to no avail here,” said Radoslav Stoyanov, co-chair of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. 

While their reaction is much needed, no doubt, no international institution can directly invalidate the law despite the possibility for them to issue binding judgments or impose sanctions. At the end of the day, the decision to repeal the law lies with Bulgarian institutions. The question is how strong the incentive is for them to do that when the law is very popular and when sanctions are paid by the taxpayers who don’t mind that.

“Bulgarian society is heading into a downward spiral of Kremlin propaganda consumption, and the possibility of the re-election of Donald Trump as the next US president is actually a very influential factor as well,” added Stoyanov, noting that the existence of many “don’t say gay” and “don’t say they” laws in the US have been used as an argument in defense of the Bulgarian law.

Forbidden Colours condemned the legislation “that bans the portrayal of LGBTIQ+ identities in schools.”

 This law is a blatant attack on children’s rights and echoes the discriminatory policies seen in Russia and Hungary. This law is a direct assault on the fundamental human rights of LGBTIQ+ individuals, particularly children. It is deeply troubling to see Bulgaria adopting tactics from Russia’s anti-human rights playbook. Such actions are not only regressive but are also in direct contradiction to the values of equality and non-discrimination that the European Union stands for.

Homophobia and transphobia are widespread in Bulgaria, as its governments cozied up to the extreme right during the ongoing period of instability, which saw six general elections in three years. 

The country has also declined to ratify the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women due to widespread propaganda that it would promote LGBTQ+ rights. The Bulgarian LGBTQ+ community has been a frequent target of discrimination and violence.

Similar anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has been passed in other countries in the region of South East Europe, including EU member Hungary, and EU candidate countries Moldova and Turkey. 

Written by Global Voices Central & Eastern Europe

Human rights defenders demand safety and equality for LGBTQ+ people

Originally published on Global Voices

Skopje Pride 2024. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.

This article is based on the coverage of Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation. 

The fifth Skopje Pride took place on June 22, 2024 with the slogan “Spectacularly disobedient,” gathering several hundred members of the local LGBTQ+ community as well as heterosexual supporters of human rights and equality for all. The event started at 5 p.m. at the Park of the Woman Fighter. After several keynote speeches, it continued as a protest march through the streets of Skopje and it ended with a dance party at the Army Stadium in the City Park.

When asked why they named the 2024 parade “Spectacularly disobedient,” the organizing committee member Kočo Andonovski responded:

Непослушни затоа што сакаме да ја реафирмираме таа наша опозиција на патријархатот кој нѐ владее доста векови. Спектакуларно како едно обележје на самата заедница која е забележителна и како одбележување на јубилејот на петти Прајд. Дури и „Њујорк тајмс“ објави фотографии од првата Парада на гордоста во Скопје и ништо помалку спектакуларно не очекуваме и за овој Прајд. Тој ќе биде еден од најдобрите и најпосетените настани во Скопје како и претходните години.

Disobedient because we want to reaffirm our opposition to the patriarchy which rules over us for centuries. Being spectacular is one of the features of our community, which is remarkable and that's how we mark the jubilee fifth Pride. Five years ago even New York Times published photos of the first Skopje Pride, so we expect this Pride to be as spectacular, as one of the best and most visited events in Skopje.

Organizers claim that Skopje Pride, like the other Pride parades, is a holiday of love, day of visibility of the marginalized people and of course, a celebration of the resilience of the fight for equality.

Feminist activist Rita Behadini speaking at Skopje Pride 2024. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.

The march started with two keynote speeches, one by a mother whose child is a transgender person, speaking in Macedonian; and another by a feminist activist speaking in Albanian, reflecting the cultural diversity of the country. The mother explained that she  could only bond with her daughters after she came out, and addressed the needs of community members who are afraid  to come to the Pride and express their authentic selves, especially teenagers living under pressure.

Додека се радувам гледајќи ја ќерка ми како го вее знамето на заедницата не можам, а да не се сетам на сите ЛГБТ кју тинејџери кои жиеват во страв од своите родители или се соочуваат со отфрлање.

While I feel joy watching my daughter waving the flag of the community, I'm also mindful of all the LGBTQ teenagers who live in fear of their parents or face rejection.

Skopje Pride 2024. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.

The event received support from the international community with some staff of the European Union (EU) countries and US embassies actively participating in the parade.

Delighted joining #SkopjePride in support of diversity, equality and inclusion for all! #HumanRightsForAll https://t.co/IBwIv0nouF

— Vilma Dambrauskienė (@VilmaLTdiplomat) June 22, 2024

During previous years, while pro-EU center-left parties were in power, top Macedonian government officials regularly attended the Pride events. This year, after a change of government, only few opposition politicians came to express support like former Minister of Culture Bisera Kostadinovska-Stojčevska and former Minister of Labor and Social Policy Jovana Trenčevska.

Prior to the event, the organizers visited the new president Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, who also came into power as a candidate of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE. She tweeted about the audience:

Средба со претставници на организацискиот одбор на Парадата на гордоста. Разговаравме за нивните досегашни активности, како и за идните планови кои имаат за цел подигнување на јавната свест за почитување на различностите, а во контекст на остварување на основните човекови права. pic.twitter.com/TVkwHay99N

— Гордана Сиљановска Давкова (Gordana Siljanovska) (@gogamkd) June 20, 2024

Meeting with the representatives of the organizing committee of the Pride Parade. We spoke about their activities so far, and their future plans to raise public consciousness about respect for diversity, in the context of fulfilling the basic human rights.

The tweet draw many negative comments from supporters of the ruling right-wing parties, expressing disappointment that the president allegedly failed to uphold the conservative values she was voted to promote.

Skopje Pride 2024. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.

Right-wing counter protest in Bitola

On the same day as the Skopje Pride, right-wing citizens supported by the Macedonian Orthodox Church organized a counter-protest in Bitola, the third largest city in North Macedonia. Several dozen participants of this third “True Parade of Pride” marched through the main pedestrian street displaying a banner with the image of Jesus Christ, the portal Bitola News  reported.

Local TV station Tera quoted one  of the organizers, Igor Petrovski, who said  that their main tenets were “given by God” – home, family [that can only consist of] mother and father as parents and children. According to him “anything else is refusal of our future” and “working against our dearest, our children.”  

Pride marches challenge endemic homophobia in the Balkans

Similar to previous years, several more Pride marches took place on the same June day, notably in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

The fifth annual Bosnian and Herzegovinian (BiH) Pride March was held in Sarajevo under the slogan “I love: no fear in living freely”, aiming to highlight everyday violence against LGBTQ+ people in the country .

Sarajevo #Pride is magnificent #bhpovorkaponosa2022 #porodicnookupljanje pic.twitter.com/QfmQ8sykU4

— Samoborski Muftija (@sanjinbuzo) June 25, 2022

Similar to Skopje, the Pride March in Sarajevo ended with a party, with acclaimed Bosnian-American writer Aleksander Hemon closing the fifth Sarajevo Pride with a DJ set.

Radio Free Europe in Bulgarian reported that the 17th edition of Sofia Pride gathered thousands of people under the slogans “Let's love a little more,” and “Bulgaria is our home, too,” addressing the issue of patriotism promoted by the members of LGBTQ+ community.

The Bulgarian Pride included a concert of various music genres, including popular singer Irina Florin, heavy metal band Overhook, pop-folk singer Lidia, and the Ukrainian performer Orfi, who in February had been subjected to homophobic attack in the coastal city of Varna.

Хиляди хора се събраха на 17-ото протестно шествие на София Прайд в събота вечерта. https://t.co/t6ccvJZig9

То се провежда всяко лято в защита на правата на хората от ЛГБТ общността в България. Тази година събитието е под наслов “България е и нашият дом”. #SofiaPride pic.twitter.com/Ooio58QQle

— Свободна Европа (@SvobodnaEvropa) June 22, 2024

Thousands of people gathered for the 17th protest march Sofia Pride on Saturday evening.
It takes place every summer to protect the rights of the people from the LGBT community in Bulgaria. This year under the  title “Bulgaria is our home, too.” #SofiaPride

On the morning of the Pride day, Bulgarian right-wing groups held a counter-protest titled “March for the Family,” gathering over 10,000 participants. It was supported by members of parliament from the ruling party GERB (member of European People Party) and the leaders of the pro-Russian party Revival (Възраждане) and extreme right party SWORD (МЕЧ). Their stated goal includes the protection of the traditional family and demanding implementation of concrete state policies on dealing with the demographic crisis.

Bulgaria is a full member of the EU but many LGBTQ+ rights remain unprotected by national legislation. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights obliged Bulgaria to recognize same-sex partnerships. In 2023, the Supreme Administrative Court has forbidden transgender people from legally changing their sex.

Written by Metamorphosis Foundation

Is it just business and politics or more?

Originally published on Global Voices

Image by Arzu Geybullayeva

President Ilham Aliyev, the incumbent leader of Azerbaijan, has welcomed leaders of several countries known for their anti-Western sentiments and in some cases, questionable human rights and freedoms records in recent weeks. Among the leaders shaking hands and signing agreements with President Aliyev since April 2024 were Tajikistan's president Emomali Rahmon, the President of Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Slovakia's Prime Minister, and the President of Bulgaria.

In April 2024, Slovakia elected a populist president who publicly sympathized with Russia. In the case of Hungary, the country has been consistently blocking aid to Ukraine, as recently as May 27, 2024. Hungary's President, Viktor Orban, also congratulated Russia's President Vladimir Putin on re-election in March 2024. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia were also among the countries that blocked imports of Ukrainian grain in 2023, earning the nickname of “rogue states” within the European Union. Hungary and Slovakia also blocked the release of a statement on behalf of all 27 EU member states on Georgia's controversial foreign agent bill adopted on May 14, 2024.

Beyond these countries, the president also prides himself in having developed a “friendship” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and having a cozy relationship with Uzbekistan, which is ranked “not free” by Freedom House's annual Freedom in the World report. This is not at all an exhaustive list. 

As for the recent events, Azerbaijani experts have been mulling over these visits, with some claiming Azerbaijan has gained significant interest among international leaders looking to build ties with the country, while others have been critical, concerned that the government is headed toward an anti-Western coalition. 

Hikmet Babaoglu, Deputy Chairman of the Defense, Security, and Anti-Corruption Committee of the Milli Majlis [Azerbaijan's Parliament], viewed the interest in Azerbaijan especially among Eastern European countries as a logical step given Azerbaijan's already existing ties with Western Europe. “Our main trade partners are Western European countries. Therefore, we should consider the increase of interest of Eastern European countries in Azerbaijan as a process after the West,” Babaoglu told Meydan TV in an interview. Babaoglu added that statements claiming otherwise, or accusing Azerbaijan of fostering anti-Western sentiments are nothing but political blackmail aimed at tarnishing the country's international image.

The pro-government member of the parliament also accused some Azerbaijani media outlets of becoming tools in the hands of imperialist powers and spreading false narratives.

For political scientist Azer Gasimli, who heads the Institute of Political Management, Azerbaijan's growing ties with countries like Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, were more transactional than anything else. “Official Baku takes part in [these countries’] investment projects in exchange for their support of Azerbaijan,” noted Gasimli, in an interview with Meydan TV.

In April 2023, Azerbaijan signed the “Solidarity Ring,” a document outlining the expansion of the gas network with the countries in Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. This initiative became more urgent after natural gas exports from Russia were closed off following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Following a visit from the Slovakian Prime Minister, the two countries also signed an agreement on the involvement of Slovak companies in reconstruction work in Karabakh, which has been left in disarray after violence erupted between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the last five years.

Natig Jafarli, a member of the Political Committee of the REAL Party, said that countries like Slovakia and Hungary, who are EU and NATO members, act in their self-interest, especially when it comes to securing energy deals. “Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Slovakia was receiving 90 percent of its gas supply from Russia, while Hungary was receiving 80 percent of its oil supply from Russia,” explained Jafarli, as such, with some of these countries that were once heavily dependent on Russia for energy, looking at alternatives was normal added Jafarli in his interview with Meydan TV. “For [countries like] Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary, Azerbaijan's energy reserves can play a sufficient role in reducing [their over-reliance on Russia] and meeting their needs,” said Jafarli.

As such, even if Azerbaijan wanted to, it could not join any anti-western coalitions because of the country's high dependence on the West. “51 percent of [the country's] oil and 75 percent of [its] gas are sold to Western countries. Our biggest buyer is Italy. Given this reality, how can Azerbaijan pursue an anti-Western policy? If this becomes the case, then the country will have to face significant economic consequences,” explained Jafarli. 

Jafarli explained that from a political point of view, Azerbaijan's growing ties with other authoritarian regimes are meant to send a message to Brussels. The EU has leveled much criticism toward Azerbaijani officials over decreasing freedoms in the country and its dismal human rights record.

A different kind of diplomacy

Azerbaijan's approach to diplomacy differs greatly in Western Europe compared to Eastern Europe. This has been documented for years by various international organizations that have dubbed the energy-rich country's diplomatic efforts as “caviar diplomacy.” The latter was a term coined by a European think tank, the European Stability Initiative (ESI), in 2012, documenting how Azerbaijani officials were bribing European politicians at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). But its bribing efforts extended beyond just PACE.

In 2017 the Azerbaijani Laundromat put the UK under the spotlight when “confidential banking records were leaked to the Danish newspaper Berlingske and shared with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Guardian, and other media partners,” covering a 30-month period reported The Guardian at the time. The 2021 investigation by VICE revealed how through a wide network of politicians and lobbyists Azerbaijani influenced politics in Berlin. There is documentation of other forms of lobbying carried out by the government of Azerbaijan in recent years. In January 2024, at least three German politicians were charged with bribery and corruption in connection with Azerbaijan. The most recent scandal of Azerbaijani influence involves US lawmaker Representative Henry Cuellar who was charged with “taking at least USD 360,000 in bribes from companies controlled by the government of Azerbaijan.”

In all of these cases, the Azerbaijani government and its leadership got away with its dubious financial transactions and deals all the while, building new friendships and practicing the same old tactics of cracking down on free press and dissent. A January 2024 decision at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe not to renew the credentials of Azerbaijan's delegation on the grounds the country failed to meet “major commitments” as part of its membership to the Council of Europe made little difference. International calls on the government to release political prisoners including April 2024 resolution by the European Parliament have also made no impact. When President Aliyev signed the most recent pardon decree on the day of the country's national independence on May 25, 2024, not one political prisoner was on the list.

Written by Arzu Geybullayeva

Barbie dolls are a longstanding part of pop culture in the Balkans

Originally published on Global Voices

Actual screenshot from Barbie movie trailer and a Balkan version made to look like a screenshot of English language online news to make it more believable. Fair use.

Even before its opening in mid July, the new Barbie movie made a splash in the Balkans with  residents of the region perusing the news generated by the marketing campaign.

A tweet depicting the popularity of Barbie vs current box-office competitor Oppenheimer in the Balkans by a Kosovo group Kos_data that produces data visualizations went viral, with over 4.5 million views so far.

Barbie vs Oppenheimer: Which is the most searched movie in the Balkans in the last 24 hours pic.twitter.com/NdGhhZ9IUw

— kos_data (@kos_data) July 22, 2023

As explained by the Turkish version of the UK newspaper Independent, Kos_data used the results of the Google Trends searches for each country of the region.

Barbie mania also included an example of the disinformation trend of reusing news from abroad as inspiration to produce misleading content aimed at inciting interethnic hatred at a time of increased political tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.

False news about the ban of Barbie movie in Serbia

After Vietnam banned the Barbie movie due to a controversial map that had geopolitical implications for some, photoshopped Balkan variants of the scene begun to pop up, alleging that the film is banned in Serbia also.

The fact-checking service Truthmeter.mk debunked viral disinformation that used a meme based on a screenshot from the movie trailer that alleged that a map of the Balkans in the movie promotes the nationalist concept of Greater Albania. This concept implies the Albanian conquest and ethnic cleansing of parts of Greece, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro.

Screenshot of Facebook post falsely calming Serbia censored the Barbie movie and demanding the same from North Macedonia. (Translation in the article text.)

While the meme itself was possibly produced as a joke, many people in the region reacted to it in a very serious manner, using it as vehicle and excuse for hate speech.  For instance, all but one of 36 shares and 27 comments of a Facebook post rated false by Truthmeter.mk contain curses and insults against Albanians, the “Satanic” West or the US and its allies. In this case government of North Macedonia is presented as weakling accepting Western dictates, which is referred to with a slur that can be translated as “Northistan” — an attempt to show disagreement with the name change in 2019.

FILMOT ZA BARBI ZABRANET VO SRBIJA PORADI MAPA NA GOLEMA ALBANIJA … VO SEVEDZGAN NE E ZABRANET IAKO NA MAPATA SEVERDZGAN NE POSTOI I E PODELEN MEGJU BUGARIJA I GOLEMA ALBANIJA .

OVA DA SI ZNAETE KAKO VI STOJAT RABOTITE VO DRZAVCEVO I SHTO VI SPREMAAT !

The film Barbie was banned in Serbia due to the map of Great Albania. It has not been banned in Northistan although Northistan is not on the map at all and is divided between Bulgaria and Greater Albania. This is just to let you know the state of affairs in our statelet and what they [the West and Macedonian government]  have in store for you.

Some right wing propagandists who seemingly were aware it's false also shared the meme with a comment that they can't verify if it's true, knowing that the image will inflame their audience anyway. One such media personality later removed such а clickbait tweet.

The false information that the Barbie movie is banned in Serbia was also making rounds on the social networks in Albania, where it had been debunked by the fact-checking service Faktoje.

Comments by some members of the Albanian community on Facebook and on Twitter indicated that some of its members shared the meme also, but with different motives: as a way to promote nationalist sentiments, or to prove their negative opinion of Serbia as repressive country that uses censorship.

In fact, the Barbie movie was never censored in Serbia. Moreover, on July 25, its distributor Blitz Film declared it the highest grossing film in Serbian cinemas since the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first weekend of showing it had 60,315 movie theater visitors, earning over USD 306,000 dollars, which is quite a lot for a country with 6 million citizens.

Remembering local Barbie variants

On a lighter note, the Museum of Yugoslavia from Belgrade joined the discussion about Barbie mania by recalling a local version of the doll that was popular at the end of the 1980s.

The term “Barbie doll” in its local variant “barbika” were widespread across the former federation, and were used not only for the original, imported kind, but also for any knockoffs or variants of plastic dress up dolls. In the 1970s and 1980s, owning an original Barbie was considered very important part of little girls’ childhood, even playing a role of a kind of status symbol for the family.

Dok ceo svet luduje za novim filmom Barbie #izdvajamoizkolekcije barbiku napravljenu po liku Lepe Brene. Ovaj proizvod sa likom poznate pevačice prorduciran je uz album „Boli me uvo za sve“, koji je ujedno i muzička podloga u filmu „Hajde da se volimo 3 – Udaje se Lepa Brena“. pic.twitter.com/M48kV5lrWL

— Muzej Jugoslavije (@MuzejYU) July 24, 2023

While the whole world goes crazy about the new Barbie movie, from our collection we single out this ‘Barbie doll’ modeled upon Lepa Brena. This product with the face of the famous singer was produced alongside the  album “Boli me uvo za sve” [I couldn't care less] which was a soundtrack to the  movie “Hajde da se volimo 3 – Udaje se Lepa Brena” [Let's love each other  3 – Lepa Brena is getting married].”

The movie series “Hajde da se volimo” (Let's  love each other) consisted of three musical comedies published between 1987 and 1990. They featured fictional adventures of the regional folk star Lepa Brena, in a manner reminiscent of the comedies of Elvis Presley. These hugely popular movies included slapstick humor in the manner of Louis de Funès by some of the most popular Yugoslav actors at the time, like Dragomir “Gidra” Bojanić and Bata Živojinović.

The Lepa Brena doll wears an outfit from the video spot of the song “Hajde da se volimo” (Let's love each other) in which she and her band parade around Dubrovnik in quasi Scottish costumes. It also ties in promotion of tourism on the Adriatic Coast. In recent years these dolls were sought out  as collectibles, with prices reaching up to 123 dollars on online auction sites.

Written by Global Voices Central & Eastern Europe

Homophobic narratives attempt to undermine trust in the European Union

Originally published on Global Voices

Skopje Pride 2023, held on June 24, 2023. Photo by Global Voices, (CC-BY-3.0).

Populist political forces across Europe have been utilizing homophobia and the stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people as a weapon of political influence for the last two decades. Many of these campaigns have mimicked, or were even helped by, the extreme right-wing circles from the US. After 2013, Moscow emerged as a major generator of homophobic narratives that exploited existing endemic intolerance in the Balkans region.

A recent analysis entitled “Kremlin speaking: homophobia as geopolitics” by Bulgarian fact-checking platform Factcheck.bg, run by the Association of European Journalists-Bulgaria (AEJ), revealed that key homophobic narratives pushed by the Kremlin propaganda are meant to undermine trust in the European Union (EU) by stoking fears among socially conservative people:

“The West imposes homosexuality and pedophilia on us”;
“Membership in the European Union (EU) means acceptance of same-sex marriage”;
“European values contradict traditional morality”.

The  author, Bulgarian editor and journalist, Vanessa Nikolova, points out that Moscow is using homophobia as a geopolitical weapon, as an extension of its state policy of protection of “traditional values.” In December 2022, the Russian Federation adopted amendments to the federal information law banning “LGBTQ+ propaganda” and blocking web resources.

Nikolova points out that today’s Russian social media users often use the expression “gay-Nazism” when discussing the political situation in Ukraine and in Western countries. She also noted the development of whole new propaganda vocabulary, fitting the definition of newspeak from George Orwell's novel “Nineteen Eighty-four.”

Words like “Gayrope,” “Eurogay”, “liberast”, “tolerast” (the last two referring to the Bulgarian word for “faggot” combined with liberal and tolerance), etc. are recognizable in the anti-democratic and anti-European rhetoric in Bulgaria. This propaganda vocabulary began to penetrate the Bulgarian media as early as 2013, but reached the peak of its popularity in 2018 in the debates on the adoption of the Istanbul Convention.

Then the word “gender” was created and imposed – a negative name for people with non-traditional sexual orientation, as well as for those who sympathize with them, and in a broader sense – for human rights defenders, civil society and supporters of liberal values in general.

Nikolova warned that the basis for these narratives is the suggestion that the EU is morally unacceptable and destroys traditional values.

By exporting “homophobic nationalism”, Russia is carrying out a much more comprehensive plan – to undermine the foundations of European liberal democracies based on the principles of respect for human rights and tolerance. Because of this, European values are presented as focused solely on the rights of sexual minorities, and the EU is accused of carrying out “gender propaganda”.

She pointed out that in the Balkans, disinformation narratives against “Gayrope,” degradation, and “Satanism,” have gained traction in socially conservative and nationalistic circles

The ripple effect of the official Russian rhetoric, that presents the war in Ukraine as an extension of this policy by other means, has an impact among Kremlin proxies in the Balkans, promoting the myths of “innocent” Russia and the “wrong” West, generating outrage based on fear and prejudice.

Banner with US and Rainbow flag at Skopje Pride 2023 reading ‘There's no pride in prejudice,’ a pun on the title of Jane Austin novel. Photo by Global Voices, (CC-BY-3.0).

Articles by the Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub project document that such narratives affect both communities of Slavic peoples (Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bulgarians), considered culturally linked to Russia via Orthodox Christianity, but also communities that might be historically considered adverse to Russian imperialism, such as ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania, as well as ethnic Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Spreading disinformation about LGBTQ+ people goes hand in hand with promoting criminal behavior, including online and offline violence.

As we close #PrideMonth in Kosovo , let’s work to protect all communities from online violence.

Check out Agon Rexhepi’s story from NDI’s #DISICON2023, warning about the online threats against the #LGBTQI+ community.#PrideMonth2023 #NDIKosovo #JavaeKrenarise pic.twitter.com/CyRebkZVTi

— NDI Kosovo (@NDIKosovo) June 10, 2023

When such propaganda targets socially conservative groups, like majority-Muslim communities, the primary goal is not to make them love Vladimir Putin, more or to generate open support for the Russian regime. The aim is to exploit homophobia to incite fear and outrage against the West and democracy, creating further discord and disrupting the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region.

For instance, disinformation presenting the EU as weak and disunited include lies about measures against LGBTQ+ people supposedly adopted by the Italian parliament, spread in Kosovo in March 2022 and in North Macedonia in June 2023.

During the last two years, disinformation about Pride Month activities has been plaguing the political and media sphere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including religious propaganda in Kosovo.

The 2022 Belgrade Pride march was particularly targeted, as Serbian far-right political parties and the Serbian Orthodox Church condemned the event and called for a ban via protests that included the glorification of Russian president Vladimir Putin as a model “defender of traditional values.”

Libelous claims about the use of the rainbow flag that implicate international institutions, like fake claims about the UN replacing country flags with the flag in Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro, and photo montages and AI-generated deepfakes about the Pope spread in Montenegro and North  Macedonia, cater to local nationalists.

Some local social media influencers plainly parrot Russian narratives about Nazi connections, which is historically ludicrous given that Hitler's regime attempted to exterminate gay people.

Attempts to use an LGBTQ+ connection to emasculate the armies of EU countries and allies, in contrast to supposedly stout Russian armed forces, have been noted in Albania and Montenegro.

Skopje Pride 2023 march, June 24, 2023. Photo by Global Voices, (CC-BY-3.0).

Stoking the fears of parents is another tactic that affects public opinion in the Western Balkans. In North Macedonia in March, a Coalition for Protection of Children waged a campaign spreading panic about pro-LGBTQ+ indoctrination in schools. The coalition, consisting of 31 small political parties and NGOs, is co-founded by pro-Kremlin fringe political party Rodina Makedonija, with the support of U.S. fundamentalist Christian lobbying organization Family Watch.

Defamatory assertions about local schools continue to pop up in Macedonian right-wing media, which sees transphobia as a new key area. Similar manipulations about the use of schools for the indoctrination of children are present in neighboring Albania.

Other cross-border disinformation trends include promoting stigmatization by connecting sexual orientation with infectious diseases, such as monkeypox, which was seen in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and used by tabloids and social media trolls in Montenegro, alongside the “classic” association of LGBTQ+ people with pedophilia in Bosnian and Macedonian social network spaces, including lies about the World Economic Forum and EU reactions to discrimination in Hungary. 

Pride marches and related events taking place in the Balkans during May and June 2023 have been pointing to the devastating effects of homophobia and transphobia, demanding a systemic response to issues of impunity for hate speech and hate crimes that undermine democracy and the rule of law. Such criminal behavior further erodes the fragile social cohesion of transitional societies, contributing to increasing the already present extreme polarization, as well as normalizing an atmosphere of fear, where any minorities or people with different opinions can be scapegoated.

Written by Global Voices Central & Eastern Europe

Safety and impunity for violence against LGBTQ+ people remain pressing concerns

Originally published on Global Voices

Skopje Pride 2023 March, June 24, 2023. Photo by Global Voices, CC-BY-3.0.

Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Skopje and thousands more in Sarajevo during the annual Pride events on Saturday, June 24. In the two weeks before that, Pride marches took place in Zagreb, Prishtina, Athens and Sofia, while International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) was celebrated in Tirana on May 17.

And while only the Pride in Istanbul faced official government restrictions, these celebrations also came with similar demands in all Balkan capitals: stopping hate speech and hate crimes fueled by widespread homophobia and transphobia.

A region ‘championing’ homophobia in Europe

In March 2023, the Institute of Sociological, Political and Juridical Research (ISPPI), which is part of Sts. Cyril and Methodious University in Skopje, revealed the results of the European Social Survey (ESS) pertaining to homophobia, xenophobia, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Starting in 2002 the survey has been held every two years in up to 35 European countries, and the latest round covered North Macedonia for the first time.

Balkan countries marked in red: Responses to the question “If a close family member was a gay man or a lesbian, I would feel ashamed.” Source: European Social Survey Round 10 Data. Data file edition 3.0. Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, Norway – Data Archive and distributor of ESS data for ESS ERIC, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

The results of the survey revealed that citizens of North Macedonia are among the most homophonic and most xenophobic in Europe, as well as declaring themselves among the most religious. They have strong authoritarian tendencies, distrust state institutions, and are disinterested in participation in democratic processes that would lead to social change. They are susceptible to conspiracy theories, doubt science, and blame their state for low quality of education, economy and politicians.

Responses by the representative sample of 1429 respondents placed North Macedonia as outlier among the 24 countries covered by the survey conducted during 2022, but most other Balkan countries had similar results.

For instance, while 61 percent of respondents from North Macedonia confirmed that they would “feel ashamed” “if a close member of their family is a gay man or lesbian,” a significant percentage of respondents in neighboring countries also agreed: 39 percent in Montenegro, 37 percent in Bulgaria, 30 percent in Croatia, and 29 percent in Serbia.

The ESS results also indicated that only 24 percent of  respondents in North Macedonia agreed that “Gay men and lesbians should be free to live their own life as they wish.” Other European countries where such tolerant people are in the minority include Montenegro (30 percent), Serbia (41 percent), Lithuania (41 percent), Bulgaria (48 percent) and Hungary (48 percent).

“Skopje has no place for homophobes,” a banner at Skopje Pride 2023, June 24, 2023. Photo by Global Voices, CC-BY-3.0.

In a statement for Radio MOF, the ESS national coordinator for North Macedonia, Professor Aneta Cekic, pointed at high levels of social conservativism in Macedonian society as the cause of this situation.

Имаме исто така доста негативен став и кон абортусот, на пример, релативно негативен став кај некои категории испитаници и кон жените, меѓутоа факт е дека најекстремниот или најнегативниот став е насочен кон оваа (ЛГБТ) популација, можам да кажам и традиционално веќе.

We've also detected very negative positions about abortion, for instance, and in some categories of respondents we found relatively negative positions towards women. However it is a fact that most extreme or most negative positions are against the LGBTQ+ population, which I may say has become traditional.

North Macedonia ranked lowest in Europe in responses to whether it is good or bad for the economy “to allow people from other countries to live here.” These negative  opinions on migrations, with 41 percent refusing to allow people of other race or ethnic group to live in their country, placed North Macedonia in a like-minded group with Hungary, Czechia, Greece and Slovakia. Cekic explained to Radio MOF that factors contributing to xenophobia and authoritarian tendencies include relatively high poverty, as well as “political instability, high level of conflict, corruption and problems in society.”

In the Western Balkans, homophobia has been especially damaging as a weapon of geopolitical influence, as both domestic and foreign anti-democratic forces use it to recruit support among the conservative segments of population.

Demands for basic safety

In Bosnia, while preparations for Pride were underway, representatives of the LGBTQ+ community demanded less security than in previous years and shared a feeling that “progress has been made.” Several public events aimed to increase public support for LGBTQ+ people, rather than declarative tolerance under condition of them staying stays inside their “four walls.”

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reported that public support is getting louder, and more visible, after two hooligan attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community in Banja Luka, the capital of Serbian entity Republika Srpska, where local police banned a preparatory public event in March.

SARAJEVO PRIDE 2023.

Oko 3.000 ljudi okupilo se na ovogodišnjoj @BHpovorkaponosa koja uprave traje pod sloganom “Ponosno zajedno”.
(video by @sanjinbuzo)#bhpovorkaponosa #sarajevopride pic.twitter.com/2tOlvR8z1P

— valter.portal (@ValterPortal) June 24, 2023

SARAJEVO PRIDE 2023.

Around 3,000 people gathered for this year's Pride March which goes on under the slogan “Proud together.”
(video by @sanjinbuzo) #bhpridemarch #sarajevopride

BIRN also reported on a counter-protest in Sarajevo, attended by several dozen Muslim conservatives, which held banners reading “The people doesn't want you,” “You have stolen the rainbow,” and “We love Prophet Mohammed.”

Skopje Pride 2023, February 24, 2023. Photo by Global Voices, CC-BY-3.0.

Key messages from Skopje Pride 2023 included appeals to the whole of society to help solve the issues of basic safety for LGBTQ+ people, such as violated body autonomy, hate speech and social exclusion. Participants addressed the authorities in particular with demands to end impunity for discrimination and hate crimes, and to provide protection of basic human rights for all in North Macedonia.

Lila Milić, a transgender person, held a keynote speech at the start of the march, outlining the  main concerns, such as the lack of reaction by the police and Public Prosecutors Office to reports of documented cases of hate speech and threats to the physical safety of LGBTQ+ people.

И покрај тоа што безброј пати сме пријавувале документирани случаи на говор на омраза и до полицијата и до Јавното обвинителство, сè уште немаме ниту еден случај во кој поединец или група биле осудени. Јас лично, континуирано сум жртва на говор на омраза, особено од организации кои се здружуваат со единствена цел – да ги негираат правата на ЛГБТИ+ заедницата и родовата еднаквост. Ме нарекуваат болна, неморална, ми посакуваат ќотек, силување, смрт, не го препознаваат мојот родов идентитет, постојано ми се закануваат и ме исмејуваат. Многупати досега сум поднела кривична пријава и сум побарала заштита, но Обвинителството и полицијата ништо не преземале. Пораката од институциите до мене е јасна – мојот живот и животот на трансродовите лица не е подеднакво вреден за заштита.

На оваа ситуација се надоврзуваат верските лидери кои повикуваат гласно да не се донесе законот за родова еднаквост и законот за матична евиденција во делот за правното признавање на родот. Да, верските лидери, оние кои уживаат моќ и статус, оние за кои државата прави исклучок од (законот за) антидискриминација и им овозможува легално да дискриминираат жени при вработување, да не плаќаат даноци, а да наплаќаат за добра и услуги. Оние кои градат облакодери кај холидеј ин спротивно на јавниот интерес и на грбот на народот што осиромашува. Тие морализираат за тоа што било жена и како жената треба да се однесува и да изгледа. Тие си земаат за право да шират омраза и да поттикнуваат насилство кон ЛГБТИ луѓето и тоа да го викаат морал. Ако тоа е морал, а нашата борба за да не не тепаат, вознемируваат, за да се вработуваме и да имаме подеднаква можност за образование е неморална, тогаш треба да се запрашаме дали навистина сакаме да бидеме демократија или теократија.

Even though we've filed reports on documented cases of hate speech with the police and public prosecutors countless times, there's still not one case of conviction of an individual or group perpetrator.  I have personally been a victim of hate speech, especially by organizations formed with a single goal — to negate the rights of the LGBTQ+ community and to prevent gender equality.  They call me sick, immoral, they express wishes for someone to thrash me, to rape me or to kill me, they don't acknowledge my gender identity and constantly threaten or mock me. I've filed criminal charges many times, asking for protection, but the Prosecutors Office and police did nothing.  The message from these institutions for me is clear: my life and the lives of transgender people are not equally worthy of protection.

This situation is made worse by the religious  leaders who loudly advocate against the laws on gender equality and recognition of gender in public registry. Yes, the religious leaders, who enjoy power and status, those exempt by the state from the antidiscrimination law, enabling them to legally discriminate against hiring women, those who are exempt from paying taxes, while they charge for goods and services. Those who build skyscrapers next to the Holiday Inn against the public interest and on the back of the people who get more impoverished.  They are moralizing about what a woman is supposed to be and how a women must behave and look. They dare to spread hate and incite violence towards LGBTQ+ people, and call that morality. If that is morality, while our struggle not to suffer beating and harassment, to be able to get a job and have equal opportunity for education is immoral, then we should all ask ourselves whether we  really want this country to be a democracy, or a theocracy.

Pride marches in other Balkan capitals usually take place during the second half of the year. Traditionally Belgrade Pride is scheduled for September, while Montenegro Pride will take place in Podgorica in October.

According to the posted schedule, the next such event in the Balkans is the Bucharest Pride, scheduled for July 29.

Written by Global Voices Central & Eastern Europe

Minority religious members fear death at home for alleged heresy

Originally published on Global Voices

Members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light. Kapikule border crossing, the gateway between Turkey and Bulgaria on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. Pictures owned by Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light. Used with permission.

On the May 24, 2023, over 100 members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, a persecuted religious minority, were denied entry and faced violent treatment while seeking asylum at the Turkish–Bulgarian border. Women, children, and elderly were among those targeted by aggression, gunshots, threats, and the confiscation of their possessions.

Among those individuals was Seyed Ali Seyed Mousavi, a 40-year-old real estate agent from Iran. A few years ago, he attended a private wedding where his life took an unexpected turn. Seyed Mousavi found himself at the mercy of undercover police officers who abruptly grabbed him, forced him down, and subjected him to a severe beating. He was left to bleed for 25 minutes before someone finally sought medical assistance. 

Seyed Mousavi’s only “crime” was his affiliation with this religious minority, which led to his persecution by the authorities in Iran. The incident forced him to make a difficult decision to leave his homeland behind, abandoning everything he knows in order to preserve his life. 

The Ahmadi Religion, not to be confused with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, is a religious community that was founded in 1999. It received chruch status in the USA on 6 June 2019. Today, this religion is practiced in more than 30 countries around the world. It is headed by Abdullah Hashem Aba Al-Sadiq and follows the teachings of Imam Ahmed al-Hassan as its divine guide. 

State sponsored persecution

Since its inception in 1999, the Ahmadi Religion minority has been subjected to persecution in numerous nations. Countries including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, and Turkey have systematically oppressed them, imprisoned, threatened, and even tortured their members. This targeted discrimination is based on a belief that they are heretics.

In June 2022, Amnesty International called for the release of 21 members of the Ahmadi Religion in Algeria who were charged with offenses including “participation in an unauthorized group” and “denigrating Islam.” Three individuals received one year prison sentences, while the remaining were sentenced to six months in prison along with fines. 

Similarly, in Iran, in December 2022, a group of 15 followers of the same religion, including minors and women, were detained and transferred to the notorious Evin Prison, where they were coerced to denounce their faith and defame their religion, despite not committing any crimes, nor preaching their faith openly. The charges brought against them were based on their opposition to “Wilayat Al Faqih,” (the guardianship of the Islamic jurist) which grants authority to jurists and scholars who shape and enforce Sharia law in the country. The Iranian authorities even aired a propaganda documentary against the religion on national television.

Ahmadi Religion members have also reported violence and threats by state-sponsored militias in Iraq, leaving them vulnerable and unprotected. These incidents involved armed attacks targeting their homes and vehicles, with assailants openly declaring they are considered apostates deserving death, effectively denying them of any form of protection. 

The persecution of the Ahmadi Religion stems from its core teachings that diverge from certain traditional beliefs within Islam. These teachings include the acceptance of practices such as consuming alcoholic beverages and recognizing the choice of women regarding the wearing of the headscarf. Additionally, members of the religion question specific prayer rituals, including the notion of mandatory five daily prayers, and hold the belief that the month of fasting (Ramadan) falls in December each year. They also challenge the traditional location of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, asserting it is in modern-day Petra, Jordan, rather than Mecca.

The persecution of this religious minority has escalated significantly following the release of “The Goal of the Wise,” the official gospel of their faith. The scripture was authored by Abdullah Hashem Aba Al-Sadiq, the religious leader who asserted to fulfill the role of the promised Mahdi awaited by Muslims to appear towards the end of times. 

Braving the unknown towards freedom

Having gradually traveled to Turkey, over 100 members of the Ahmadi Religion received support from fellow members who had already settled there, fostering a sense of unity through their online connections. Despite the challenges they faced, they persevered in their quest to find a persecution-free home amidst their shared experiences of trauma. 

Faced with this dire situation, they turned to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bulgaria, the State Agency for Refugees (SAR), and the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the hopes of securing a safe haven. Unfortunately, their plea for humanitarian visas was met with disappointment as all avenues proved unfruitful.  

In light of their challenging circumstances, the group decided to gather at the official Kapikule border crossing, the gateway between Turkey and Bulgaria on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, to request asylum directly from the Bulgarian Border Police. Their course of action aligns with the provisions set forth in Article 58(4) of the Law on Asylum and Refugees (LAR) which affirms that asylum can be sought by presenting a verbal statement to the border police. 

The Border Violence Monitoring Network, along with 28 other organizations, issued an open letter urging the Bulgarian authorities and to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to fulfill their obligations under European Union law, and international human rights law.  These laws include Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In Bulgaria, several human rights organizations have coordinated to grant protection to the group and allow them an opportunity to lodge an application for international protection at the Bulgarian border, an effort that was spearheaded by the Association on Refugees and Migrants in Bulgaria. Many other organizations in Bulgaria have endorsed this statement, such as Mission Wings and the Centre for Legal Aid, Voices in Bulgaria.

Their desperate bid for safety was encountered with oppression and violence, as they were forcibly blocked by the Turkish authorities, subjected to beatings with batons, and threatened with gunshots. Now detained, their future remains uncertain. Their greatest fear is to be deported back to their homes, where death might be waiting for them, due to their religious beliefs.

The perilous journey undertaken by this minority group raises crucial questions about the integrity of borders and the commitment of EU member states to uphold human rights. Their struggles serve as a reminder of the need for solidarity to protect basic human rights and preserve the dignity of everyone, regardless of their religious affiliation.

Written by Hadil Elkhouly

Most medical workers fall into the category of ‘working poor’

Originally published on Global Voices

Nurses protest in Sliven, Bulgaria. Photo provided by the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses with permission to republish.

In early November, something unprecedented happened in Bulgaria: Dr. Georgi Zhelyazkov, the director of a key hospital in the city of Dobrich, the capital of the North Eastern province bordering Romania and the Black Sea, filed a lawsuit against 136 medical workers who, as he found out, intended to participate in an strike to demand better working conditions and higher wages. The next judiciary session is going to be in March this year.

Nevertheless, the medics started their strike on November 10. Over the next days, some of the strikers withdrew, but around 30 nurses, one doctor and two health officers continued protesting. At the time of publishing, the strike is on hold while the trial is being held. For many of the protesters, it was nevertheless symbolic, as they continued covering shifts. The protesters couldn't afford to lose their income, and they couldn't leave their patients and allow the medical system to collapse without them.

In 2019 and 2020, nurses all over Bulgaria started series of protests. They paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, as their focus shifted towards ensuring survival for the patients and themselves. Meanwhile Bulgarian authorities failed to fulfill their promise to bring the medical workers’ salaries up to the level of basic minimal salary of BGN 1500 (around USD 815). Public appreciation for their importance to society during the pandemic didn't lasted long.

Nurses complained to Global Voices of another insufficient media coverage of their recent October protests in the Bulgarian cities of Sliven, Dobrich, Vratsa, Kyustendil, and Blagoevgrad. Key demands include  implementation of a minimum salary within the sector — which was already negotiated with the government, but has not been approved by all hospitals so far. Others demands included increasing pay for night shifts, and increase of the value of food vouchers provided. 

The collective agreement was made on a three-sided negotiated basis — between the state, trade unions and medical workers. However, such an agreement, the sector collective labor contract, has a prescriptive function. As representatives of the nurses explained to Global Voices, the increased salaries for medics, as stipulated in the collective agreement, doesn't automatically lead to an increase of remuneration at a specific hospital, which has to make its own decision.

Therefore, the strike in Dobrich, organized by the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses put the demands for increased salaries to the employer, the Multiprofile Hospital for Active Treatment, Dobrich. This union is an alternative to trade unions operating at the national level and is a key organizer of protests in other cities, like Sliven, located in Central Bulgaria. It was registered in 2019, and is lead by non-conformist medics who want to change the situation of the nurses in the context of the health system by reaching the minimal levels of basic salaries previously negotiated between the state, syndicates and hospitals for the medical workers.

Nurses from Tervel express solidarity with nurses from Dobrich. Photo provided by the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses with permission to republish.

And while Bulgarian media and society don't express explicit concern for these issues, many nurses continue working more than 12 hours a day. According to the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses, at some hospitals they take shifts of a 24- or even 36-hour duration. Also, many of them work at several places at the same time to make ends meet. In the meantime, the overall number of nurses on a national level also shrinks, and many of them are either in pre-or post-pension age.

The nurse who sued several hospitals

Maya Ilieva, a well-known activist among her peers, is a key participant in the Dobrich protest. А representative of the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses, she has 27 years of work experience, of which 23 years were spent as a reanimation nurse in the capital's heart surgery hospital. During the protests in 2019, she was dismissed from the Tokuda hospital in Sofia. Ilieva sued her employer and won the trial at first instance, and at the moment her case is under Court of Appeals. She has also won five lawsuits against the same hospital, including a discrimination complaint, with the court deciding that basis of the discrimination was her trade union affiliation.

In 2019, when the alternative union was registered, Ilieva was chosen as head of the Board. After her dismissal from the Tokuda hospital the same year, she started working in another hospital in the same city. When the pandemic started, she was among the first volunteers for the COVID-19 Reanimation Ward. However she was laid off after she blew the whistle by informing the media about the deficit of medical supplies.

Nurse Maya Ilieva at the 2019 protest. Courtesy photo provided by her with permission to republish.

According to Ilieva, the situation in Dobrich is critical, due to the lack of specialists. She and other participants in the protest say that one of the units of the hospital for example has only one nurse who needs to combine the roles of a senior, surgical and a regular nurse, “all in one.”

“It is difficult to imagine how a schedule is made with only one nurse,”  Ilieva said, adding that such nurses have to virtually live in the hospital. According to her, the situation in many hospitals throughout the country is more or less the same.

Nurses from Karlovo express solidarity with nurses from Dobrich. Photo provided by the Union of the Bulgarian Nurses with permission to republish.

The number of nurses has been rapidly decreasing across the country. According to the Bulgarian Association of Professionals of Health Care, which leads a registry, there is a deficit of more than 35,000 medical nurses in the Bulgarian healthcare system. Ilieva summarized the situation:

One nurse serves between thirty and forty patients on the average, and during COVID the number reached sixty. It is not rare for one nurse to combine several roles for one salary only. The night shifts are paid low.

Ilieva assumes employers resist the increase of basic salaries because that would imply an increase of so called work time class (a salary percentage which increases with every year of service), as well as rates for overtime work. She explains:

In the hospital, there is an overtime between 40 and 240 hours monthly, while overall only 150 hours is permitted annually by law. This is why the hospital director prefers paying two thirds of the salary in the form of bonuses, the so-called additional material stimulation. By this, he puts the employees in a dependent position, depending on his goodwill when distributing the resources.

The protests in the city of Sliven

Nurse Nadezhda Margenova. Courtesy photo provided with permission to republish.

Nadezhda Margenova from Sliven is one of the founders of the alternative trade union of nurses. In order to support the protests in the end of 2022, she had to take unpaid leave. The union demanded an increase of  basic salaries to the extent agreed in the collective agreement, and unsuccessfully negotiated with the Regional Hospital in Sliven till the end of November.

For 15 years in a row, the hospital has been refusing to join the collective agreement. Margenova and her colleagues believe that the nurses employed there have the lowest salaries (around 655 dollars basic salary), compared the other hospitals in the city. Many nurses would rather work in kindergartens and schools with better pay and conditions than in hospitals where they often have to do multiple consecutive night shifts.

According to Margenova, who has been a nurse for many years, unlike other EU countries like Germany and Italy, syndicalism in Bulgaria is “practically dead” as large national level trade unions don't put effort into enforcing the signed tripartite collective agreements, and make no attempts to mobilize union members for protests. According to her, this leads to a “non-utilization of the potential of the effective strike,” which is “the last means of the syndical battle.”

Като цяло съсловието е на изчезване. Разполагаме с 20 хиляди медицински сестри, една трета от тях са в пенсионна вързраст, една трета са в предпенсионна възраст. Остават едни 7 хиляди които трябва да се разпределят в функционирането на 400 болници, отделно социални заведения, кабинети, детски ясли, градини, училища, центрове за спешна медицинска помощ, т.е. това е невъзможно, дори и при работа на втори трудов договор. Млади кадри няма, те са малко и са избрали професията основно за да могат да работят в чужбина, където са добре дошли.

In general, the profession is on its way to becoming extinct. The real picture is the following: we have around 20,000 medical nurses currently in Bulgaria. One third of them are at pension age, one third, pre-pension. There are 7000 who must be distributed in order for the functioning of 400 hospitals to be possible, as well as social institutions, cabinets, nurseries, kindergartens, emergency wards. This is impossible, even they have a second contract on a mass scale. There are no young people, they are very few and they have chosen their profession primarily in order to be able to work abroad, where they are welcome

Margenova has a gloomy prognosis for the prospects of nurses in Bulgaria, most of whom now generally fall in this category of the working poor, and are not part of the so-called middle class:

“The turmoil is yet to happen within the hospital system, and this won’t be due to the lack of doctors, but due to the lack of nurses.”

Written by Nevena Borisova

Local community centre serves as nexus of activities for depopulated village of Antimovo

Originally published on Global Voices

Traditional food from Bulgaria. Photo by Tsetsa Hristova, used with permission.

This is the third of a three-part series by Dessislava Dimitrova and Nevena Borisova about how women entrepreneurs drive the revival of culinary traditions in different parts of Bulgaria, as part of the modern slow food movement, boosting tourism and countering depopulation.

Map of Bulgaria showing the locations of villages Yavornitsa, Antimovo and Plevun. Based on maps from respective Wikipedia articles, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Tsetsa Hristova has lived in the village of Antimovo in the North West of Bulgaria since 1974. Situated in the poorest region in the EU, the village is about a kilometre away from the Danube river, situated in an area full of natural beauty and dazzling landscapes. Fishing has been a vital livelihood for the local population, therefore foods like the Vlahian fish dish called Saramură are emblematic for the region.

Tsetsa is among those few people who try to keep up the spirit of the increasingly depopulating village (suffering a fate similar to the rest of the villages in the region) through culinary and cultural traditions. She is also a secretary of the local community centre (“chitalishte” in Bulgarian). The local population is now down to around 450 people, from around 2300 (four decades ago).

Tsetsa Hristova. Photo from personal archive, used with permission.

„Селото бе към 2300 жители. Няма да забравя гълчавата на хората и добитъка сутрин и вечер. Хора с каруци, трактори, мотики на рамо отиваха на полето, градините се огласяха със смях и настроение, ливадите бяха пълни със стада крави, овце, кози. Вечер, като се прибираха, бе неописуемо – блеене от всеки двор на агънца и яренца, очакващи майките им да се приберат от паша, детски гласове огласяха до късно вечер мегданите. Всяка неделя духовата музика свиреше на площада, хората излизаха като на празник.“

“There used to be around 2300 inhabitants. I won’t forget the noise of many people and cattle gathering in the mornings and evenings before. People with carts and tractors went to the field, and the home gardens echoed with laughter. The meadows were full of flocks of cows, sheep and goats. In the evening, the bleating of lambs and kid goats waiting for their mothers to return from pasture blended with the voices of village children playing outside till dusk. Every Sunday, we had live music on the main square, and people attended in a festive manner.”

After the school closed because there were no students anymore, the community center became the only axis of social life, where Tsetsa, supported by other locals, runs activities such as recreating culture traditions and old Orthodox rituals, including folk dance groups.

Tsetsa founded a traditional culinary club, “The forgotten dishes of grandma”, aiming to preserve and recreate local dishes. The club had also gathered numerous recipes from the Vlachian region. Tsetsa sees both similarities (the essence of the dishes) and differences (in terms of form and use of spices) between the Bulgarian and Romanian cuisine in the region.

The club involves 13 middle-aged men and women. Their efforts to attract younger members have been unsuccessful. Due to COVID-19 they had to pause their series of public events, which included cooking on a live fire and demonstrating local crafts to tourists. Continuing activities after the pandemic has also been a challenge.

 “I cannot say that all the recipes, which we also intend to publish in a book, are typical only of the region, but most of them are,” Tsetsa explains, while listing some peculiar dishes, like Vlachian rolls (cabbage with rice and meat):

„Например папицата ( прави се от сварени кисели сливи, домати, люти чушки, копър и чесън) се ползва за овкусяване на супи, сармички, но е и превъзходно средство за изтрезняване ). Също – агнешка главица, просеник, запържени хапки от качамак, трезве чорба ( прави се след големите празници за разтоварване след преяждане). Те са позабравени, но предвид на интереса към тях по време на различни изяви, смятам, че ще могат да се популяризират и да са достъпни за всеки.“

For example, the papitsa (made of boiled sour plums, tomatoes, chilly peppers, dill and garlic) is used to provide taste to soups, and rolls. Other local dishes include lamb head, maize-based dishes like prosenik and fried bits of kačamak, as well as sobering soup (it is used to sober up around Christmas and New Year celebrations). These dishes have been already a bit forgotten, but bearing in mind the interest towards them, I think that they can become accessible for everyone.

Tsetsa notes that, for generations, on every occasion, both joyful and sad, these dishes have been present on the table. And the recipes reflect interesting details about everyday life in the past. For example, at one time, the amount of meat put in a dish was a sign of the household's wealth.

The month of May is exciting for the village, because it's the month when the annual International Folklore Festival, an annual event since 2010, takes place. It is attended by people from Bulgaria and the neighbouring Serbia and Romania. Three years ago, the culinary club started participating in the program.

„Стараем се да приготвяме храна в стари съдове – казани, глинени гърнета, тигани. В зависимост от това, което ще представим, всеки се заема с конкретна задача – замесване на тесто, рязане на зеленчуци, кълцане на месо (за сарми) или други ястия, палене на огньове, осоляване на рибата и какво ли още не. Тръпката е неописуема при тези приготовления, а когато видим задоволството на хората, опитали от ястията, удовлетворението е пълно.“

“We strive to prepare food with old utensils — kettles, clay jars, metal pans. Each of us takes on different task: preparing a dough, cutting vegetables or meat, etc. When we see the satisfaction of people who try the dishes, our happiness is complete!”

The heritage

Meeting Temenuzhka, Rukie and Tsetsa makes it feels like the century-long traditions and recipes they talk about are unforgettable, but unfortunately this is not the case. Their initiatives need support on local and national level, including regulation which not only allows, but makes it easier for producers of artisan foods to receive both visibility and access to the market.

Written by Nevena Borisova, Dessislava Dimitrova

Tarhana pastry served as staple food during times of famine

Originally published on Global Voices

Tarhana dish. Photo from the personal archive of Temenuzhka Mateva, used with permission.

This is the second of a three-part series by Dessislava Dimitrova and Nevena Borisova about how women entrepreneurs drive the revival of culinary traditions in different parts of Bulgaria, as part of the modern Slow Food movement, boosting tourism and countering depopulation. 

Tarhana is a food originating from Persia, and it is prepared and consumed in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. In general, it is a type of pasta, which is prepared with sourdough, based on a dried fermented mixture of flour and yoghurt (white tarhana) or fruits and vegetables (red tarhana). This artisanal food is poorly known today, while only a few decades ago it was regularly prepared in many homes in the Bulgarian mountains of Strandzha, Sakar, and Rhodopes.

Map of Bulgaria showing the locations of villages Yavornitsa, Antimovo and Plevun. Based on maps from respective Wikipedia articles, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Different dishes with tarhana also have been made on a daily basis in the southern village of Plevun where, as a child, Temenuzhka Mateva had been often with her grandma. Years later, due to sentimental reasons, Temenuzhka decided to revive the tradition and have turned into its keeper. She said:

„Траханата бе закуска сутрин през цялата зима, но баба я добавяше и към всяко вече готово ястие – като поизстине, все поръсваше. Сега разбирам, че го е правила, за да „подсили“ храната, запазвайки и пробиотичните свойства на траханата. Например, на кисело мляко ще сложи малко, ще си надробим и ще ядем. На готов фасул, вече изстинал, и там поръсваше!“

“The tarhana was our breakfast during the whole winter, and grandma also added it to every dish which was already prepared. When the dish got colder, she was always sprinkling some tarhana. Now, I understand that she made that in order to “strengthen” the food because this is also a way to preserve its probiotic qualities. People in the past knew so much!”

Temenuzhka Mateva (on the right) with her granddaughter. Photo from personal archive, used with permission.

She adds that the recipe reflects local specifics of the region itself. For example, some villages for example, where different kinds of vegetables are grown, a variety of vegetables were mixed with dough for the tarhana. And, in case that the local livelihood is related to sheep breeding, the dish is prepared with more yoghurt in it.

Temenuzhka prepares a specific kind of tarhana, without adding yoghurt to it, nor fruits or vegetables. In order to make sourdough, she puts hops, corn, chickpea and lentils in water, and, after the water boils, and the ingredients float up on the surface, she sieves the mixture, and adds einkorn wheat and rye flour. The sourdough starter is left to rise, and is then mixed with the remaining flour and bulgur.

The other part of the tarhana is the cereal bulgur, processed from einkorn wheat. After the dough is made (from the bulgur, sourdough and the einkorn wheat), it should be left to rise 2-3 days, in a warm environment. At the end, the risen dough is sifted through a perforated sieve, so called darmon (дармонь in Bulgarian). The resulting grains have to be dried in the sun, after which they are stored in paper or textile bags for the whole winter. As for the cereal ingredients, Temenuzhka personally prefers einkorn and rye, because they are plant cultures that can be grown without chemicals.

The tarhana is a way to conserve the healthy nutritional qualities of yoghurt, fruits and vegetables and the sourdough via fermentation. This food, usually prepared in summer after harvest, comes in two specific varieties: white and red. Since its preparation does not include a thermal process, it can be safely called “live food,” rich in lactic-acid bacteria.

While the tarhana has been a protection against famine in the past, it now serves as a shield against the loss of a cultural memory.

Започнах да приготвям трахана, откакто имам внуче. Замислих се, че сега, когато съм баба, е време да предам на децата си онова, което съм запомнила от моята. В продължение на години опитвах да я възстановя такава, каквато я помня.

I started preparing the tarhana since I've become a grandmother, having the idea that it is now time to transfer the knowledge of what I have learned from my grandmother to the next generation. And, in a couple of years, I succeeded in recreating this food exactly like I remember it.

Temenuzhka tries to popularize the product, but still faces a variety of difficulties because of food safety regulations. Tarhana has not been formally registered as a dish, and therefore it is more difficult to offer it in restaurants. Despite this she has created a Slow Food community in the region of Ivaylovgrad, and also uses social media group to make the food more popular.

Recently, many people who have tried the tarhana are willing to learn how to prepare it. For those people who appreciate the long-century tradition, Temenuzhka considers organizing workshops in Plevun, hoping that her efforts will bring the food back on the Bulgarian table.

Written by Nevena Borisova, Dessislava Dimitrova

The Slow Food movement meets the age-old dishes of Bulgaria

Originally published on Global Voices

Rukie Izirova and her baklava, a sweet layered pastry dessert. Photo from personal archive, used with permission.

This is the first of a three-part series by Dessislava Dimitrova and Nevena Borisova about how women entrepreneurs drive the revival of culinary traditions in different parts of Bulgaria, as part of the modern Slow Food movement, giving boost to tourism and countering depopulation. 

Bulgarian culture holds an amazing treasury of recipes and culinary traditions. The so-called artisanal foods (because, among other reasons, they are produced non-mechanically and are cultural phenomena in their essence) vary in different regions. While these various traditions reveal much about culture and history, they tend to be increasingly forgotten even by locals, due to a combination of fading memory, the “colonialism” of commercial foods, and lifestyle. A big factor is the decades-long trend of vast depopulation of Bulgarian villages.

Map of Bulgaria showing the locations of villages Yavornitsa, Antimovo and Plevun. Based on maps from respective Wikipedia articles, CC BY-SA 3.0.

However, there are people who fight these trends by recreating local culinary traditions. We managed to interview three such persons, who come from different corners of Bulgaria, but all have something in common: they believe that their vocation is to preserve local heritage as part of a collective identity.

In turn, all three are supported by the global NGO Slow Food, founded by the Italian activist Carlo Petrini in 1986. This organization aims to find people doing this work and help them with access to market and increase their local and international publicity.

The magical foods and herbs in the village of Yavornitsa

“I finished cooking, so I have time to talk now,” says Rukie Izirova. And then she starts talking about the local foods that she also prepares for tourists and visitors of her guest house and restaurant in the village of Yavornitsa, in the southwest of Bulgaria.

The name of the village comes from the word “yavor,” meaning plane tree (and not a maple tree as it is usually referred to in Bulgarian language). Centuries-old trees are plentiful in the area. Yavornitsa has a voter's list with about 800 people on it, which is not a small number for a Bulgarian village, but not all of them live there permanently.

Rukie is a member of the Bulgarian-speaking Pomak Muslim community, the only one in the village. She feels well-accepted in this her husband's native village, where she moved in 1972 and worked as a teacher. But she has always felt that she is different, because the Pomaks have developed an identity distinct from both other Muslims and Christians. After Rukie retired from teaching in 1996, she opened her guest house, which become a major tourist facility for the village.

The village is in the Belasitsa mountain range, which provides a plentiful supply of herbs and spices. In the spirit of tradition, Rukie loves cooking with wild herbs. She “updates” some of the recipes in order for them to “fit the contemporary taste.” And, aiming to popularise those foods, she hosts an annual local event called “Winter Belasitsa,” where more than 25 types of local recipes are presented to attendees.

Porridge that Rukie Izirova made. Photo from her personal archive, used with permission.

Some of the “green stuff” that Rukie gathers in spring is dried or frozen to be handy during winter, including nettle and dock, a type of wild garlic which grows only on the mountain.

“In spring, I make а porridge from different green plants from the woods. I also gather herbs for tea — linden, thyme, St. John's wort — all of which are typical of the region,” says Rukie. She has been gathering knowledge about herbs and culinary traditions by speaking to older villagers, and passing  it to devoted apprentices — her daughter and little granddaughter.

„Когато дойдох в селото, се чудех какво все берат хората по ливадите, как сладко мирише, особено дивият чесън. В менюто ползваме билки, характерни за района. Много хубава салата например става от тученицата – към свежите листа добавяме лимон, зехтинче, скилидка чесън, две лъжички майонеза и кисело мляко. Тази салата е прекрасна!“

“When I came to this village, I was bewildered when I saw the abundance of different plants that local people gather from the meadows. I was amazed by the range of different fragrances, and in particular the smell of the wild garlic. In our menu we use herbs that are characteristic  for this region. For instance, one can make a very tasty salad from the common purslane — we pick the meaty leaves fresh and add lemon, sunflower oil, a clove of garlic, two teaspoons of mayonnaise, and a bit of yogurt. The resulting salad is just wonderful!”

The retired teacher also conserves foods, makes pastry and jams, as well as the Balkan appetizer lyutenitsa (also written as ljutenica). Her restaurant only uses home-grown vegetables, and she doesn’t buy aerated beverages, instead making juices from peaches, dandelion and sambucus.

When asked on how she would describe herself, Rukie says that “Her road has had many thorns, but that it is successful because it has lead her to what she had always wanted to do.”

Written by Nevena Borisova, Dessislava Dimitrova

Poisoning is driving vultures and other protected species to extinction

Originally published on Global Voices

Poisoned griffon vulture in Bulgaria. Photo by Hristo Peshev/ FWFF, used with permission.

This article was written by the BalkanDetox LIFE project. An edited version is republished by Global Voices with permission. 

The illegal use of poisonous substances in the environment to target  “undesirable” animals depletes biodiversity and threatens public health, yet it continues to go unnoticed and unpunished according to the recent Balkan Vultures Poison Study 2022 conducted by the BalkanDetox LIFE project, funded by the European Union's (EU’s) LIFE Programme.

Between 2000 to 2020, the study period, 1,046 poisoning and presumed wildlife poisoning events were recorded across Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, the Republic of North  Macedonia, and Serbia. The main motive behind poisoning incidents appears to be conflicts with mammalian predators (mainly wolves, foxes, jackals and bears) for the potential damages they may cause to livestock practices, agricultural production, and game animals in hunting areas.

In a press release, Uroš Pantović, BalkanDetox LIFE's project coordinator, stated:

“This practice is not a solution to resolve human-wildlife conflicts. It is an unselective method of killing animals that also puts endangered species and unaware citizens, including children, in danger.”

Carbamates, especially Carbofuran, were detected in almost every second poisoning event. Carbofuran is a banned pesticide considered to be a human health hazard, and according to the US National Center for Biotechnology Information only a few milligrams may be fatal for humans “if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through skin. Contact may burn skin or eyes.” 

Poisoned Egyptian vulture in the Republic of North Macedonia. Photo by Metodija Velevski/ MES, used with permission.

Avian scavengers typically suffer the most from illegal wildlife poisoning, non more so than vultures,  which are recorded as casualties in every fourth incident. A total of 465 vultures perished in the Balkan  Peninsula, including 47 Egyptian vultures, 17 Cinereous vultures and one Bearded vulture between 2000 and 2020.

The region’s griffon vulture population suffered the worst, with 400 individuals perishing within 233  separate poisoning or presumable poisoning incidents. The common buzzard and red fox closely follow, with 392 individuals within 190 separate incidents and 389 individuals within 141 separate incidents,  respectively. 

Jovan Andevski, the Vulture Conservation Foundation’s programme manager, stated:

“An estimated 115 vultures are potentially being poisoned to death annually throughout the Balkans if we take into account that approximately less than 20% of poisoning incidents are ever discovered and documented.”

Such losses exact a heavy toll on the region's vulture populations and have led to regional and local extinction of certain species. Wildlife poisoning continues to be the single most important threat to vultures in the Balkan Peninsula and the current limiting factor for their recovery. This factor has to be taken into account when planning any conservation initiatives regarding vultures, especially restocking and reintroduction initiatives. 

Urgent need to combat wildlife poisoning in the Balkans 

Low awareness, insufficient engagement of relevant governmental authorities, unclear legislation and jurisdictions, and a lack of resources and capacities when it comes to dealing with poisoning incidents represent the main challenges in effectively combating this problem in the Balkans. 

The Balkan Vultures Poison Study 2022 notes that:

This practice is illegal in Europe, including the Balkans, but it is still in use by local people as a quick and inexpensive method for resolving conflicts with predators and other wildlife. The main driver for such an intensive use of the poison is the conflict between livestock breeders, hunters, farmers and mammalian predators, mainly wolves, but also jackals, foxes and feral/stray dogs … Its widespread use has also been facilitated by the poor enforcement of the legislation, the black market of banned pesticides and the relative free availability of poisoning substances on the markets.

Moreover, illegal poisoning “is also not uncommonly used as a way of settling various feuds and disputes between people.”

In some Balkan countries, the impunity for wildlife poisoning has only recently become a matter of public debate. For instance, it was not considered a crime in Albania until 2019. The following short documentary, posted on YouTube by the Vulture Conservation Foundation, sheds light on the history of wildlife poisoning in Albania, taking a look at the past and present.

Environmentalists who fight to protect vultures and other animals work on raising awareness about the severity of this practice to mark it as a socially unacceptable phenomenon in the eyes of the public.

They also employ various approaches to get their message across, including the creation of educational animations spreading knowledge to both young and older audiences:

Tackling illegal wildlife poisoning requires a multidisciplinary approach and joint efforts by multiple stakeholders.

The key aggravating circumstances and obstacles to the prevention and sanctioning of wildlife poisoning include unclear legislation, inadequate law enforcement, low penalties for wildlife poisoning and inadequate and unclear protocols for police action, and limited police capacities.

The BalkanDetox LIFE project further strives to engage the relevant authorities and build capacities through the Wildlife Crime Academy and other training initiatives to improve the investigation and management of poisoning incidents. It advocates the development of more efficient, clear-cut standard operational protocols for describing responsibilities in reporting, investigating and managing wildlife poisoning cases based on best practice examples from other countries.

Poisoned golden eagle in Greece. Photo by Lavrentis Sidiropoulos, used with permission.

For instance, according to this latest study, within the period 2000-2020, a total of 1,046 poisoning and presumable wildlife poisoning events have been recorded throughout the surveyed countries of the Balkan Peninsula. More than half (55 percent) of them had been documented in Greece, and over a quarter (28 percent) in Serbia. In both countries, local civil society organizations have invested significant efforts in monitoring the phenomenon of wildlife poisoning.

The study authors cautioned that lack of data from other countries contributes to the creation of the perception that this type of environmental crime is, indeed, much more frequent in Greece than elsewhere. However, they noted that the incidence in other countries could be higher, but the lack of local research makes it less visible.

“The reality of wildlife poisoning is that if more efforts are invested into research of its scope, more poisoning incidents will be detected. This is true as well for spatial distribution of poisoning incidents, and therefore those areas in which more efforts were invested in monitoring usually show a higher number of poisoning incidents. Therefore, it is highly likely that the current status of wildlife poisoning in the Balkan region and in each country individually, which was the subject of this study, does not reflect the realistic situation and that a great number of potential poisoning events remains unrecorded. “

Additionally, the project advocates enhancing communication and information exchange between responsible institutions and sectors related to jurisdiction to expedite investigative and court proceedings of wildlife poisoning incidents.

Written by Guest Contributor

One of the biggest media in this war is Telegram.

Originally published on Global Voices

Andrey Zakharov. Screenshot from a Youtube video by Truthmeter.mk.

This interview conducted by Goran Lefkov was originally published by Truthmeter.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.

Andrey Zakharov is an investigative journalist from the BBC Russian service. Like many other journalists he moved from Russia last November and is currently living in a European country. In an interview for Truthmeter.mk, he speaks about the nature  of Russian propaganda and media sphere, and the support for President Vladimir Putin among the citizens.

Truthmeter.mk: You are the first journalist who published the story about the Saint Petersburg troll factory for spreading Russian propaganda all over the world. How is  this system functioning now, with the war in Ukraine?

Andrey Zakharov (AZ): Propaganda is one of the basic things in this war. We see several levels of propaganda — one level is the state propaganda, TV news agencies which have a monopoly. All independent TV channels were closed, almost every widely popular independent media on internet were blocked since the war started, including BBC. Only some small regional media remain.

Another level are the trolls factories, like the one based in Saint Petersburg. They even rent a specific office for covering this war, similarly to their focus on USA elections in 2016. This factory is supposed to be owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, businessman close to Putin and the Kremlin.

Another level of propaganda are state news agencies, like the one that helps regional and Moscow authorities to cover different activities, but they are also involved in war propaganda.

We see this huge propaganda machine which works extremely hard. For example, from the beginning of the war, the two state TV channels have no entertainment programs during the day. From the morning till the evening there are only news and political talk shows about the war from government perspective.

Truthmeter.mk: Do you think the propaganda works successfully?

AZ: Russia totally lost this information war abroad. Russia has nothing to offer to Western audience. Russia, in my opinion, lost this information war from the beginning with every war crime, and every day of the war we see Russia losing.

At the same time, this propaganda machine inside Russia works successfully and a lot of people think this is a good war. People don’t know about the casualties, and they call them fake, because that is what’s constantly repeated on TV. Inside Russia, this propaganda machine is highly successful.

Truthmeter.mk:  What was the impact of closing Russia Today and Sputnik in the western countries? How is Russia spreading propaganda on global level? How do you see this in perspective on media freedom?

AZ: In fact, Russia Today wasn’t so popular in the most countries where it was broadcasted. Like in Great Britain, I think that less than 1 percent of the people watched it, so it was not effective. Their YouTube channels in Germany were popular, but are blocked now, so I think they lost some audience there. But even if they had this audience, they wouldn’t have anything different to offer, as very few foreign people would believe them and trust their weak explanations — that everything else is fake, except for what comes from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The question of freedom of speech is about the dilemma whether we shouldn’t close any media at all, including those promoting radical and extremist views, or that there is a border. And can we speak of freedom of speech if fake news is produced?

If you had asked me this question before the war, I would have said that every media should exist, and the audience will choose who to believe and decide whether the information is true or not. With the war, all media that still think the war is a good thing and follow a bloody discourse, should be closed. In my opinion, before the war, Russia Today and Sputnik should have existed, but after this, I support the block.

Truthmeter.mk:  What do you think about Kremlin propaganda on Ukraine territory and how do you expect this propaganda to develop in the future?

AZ: Their main mistake was the expectation that people of Ukraine will welcome them and will be happy with this occupation. I know people that supported Russia before the war, who are now are anti-Russian. Maybe there are some strange people who still think the war is good. We see that Russian propaganda is not as effective even though that Ukrainians can still watch Russian television on the internet.

One of the biggest media platforms in this war is Telegram. Telegram channels are very popular in Russia and Ukraine, those are the new media. The channel of Russian independent media Meduza has more than 1 million subscribers. Our BBC telegram channel in Russia has over 300,000 subscribers. You post one short news on your channel on Telegram and in several hours 100,000 people read the news. That’s a great opportunity. There are extremely popular Telegram channels on both sides. Ukrainians can also watch Russian channels, but they don’t believe them, because they think the war should have been stopped.

In some cities, like Mariupol, the Russians switched on the Russian TV channels and switched off the Ukrainian TV channels, hoping that Ukrainians will support them. This didn't work because most modern people, except for old people, take information from the internet to see what’s happening in reality. That is why I think the Russian propaganda is not effective.

Truthmeter.mk:  How are Russian businessmen with investments in the Balkan countries dealing with these issues? 

AZ: I don’t think that Russian propaganda is strong on the Balkans now. It is focused on other regions, while Russia’s main friend in the region is Serbia. It is enough for Russia in this situation. I don’t see any direct activities in Bulgaria and Macedonia. But if we speak about businessman with Russian origins, it is difficult for them all over the world now, because there are only few countries in the world that support Russia. I think maybe in Serbia, but I don’t know how many people, really support Russia.

In Bulgaria, traditionally people support Russia, but we still saw a big anti-Russian rally in the central Sofia and on the other hand, the pro-Russian rally was very small.

Russian businessman prefer to be silent, or if they say they are against the war, they will have sanctions or deal with harassment or expulsion.

Truthmeter.mk:  How did you leave Russia, and what’s happening with the Russian service of BBC in Moscow?

AZ: I left Russia before the war in November last year because I was designated as “foreign agent in Russia.” This official status means a lot of bureaucratic problems that can lead to jail. So I left, like many independent investigative journalists did before.

Since the war started, hundreds of journalists left Russia after remaining independent media were blocked, including extremely popular outlets with several million visitors per, like Meduza, as well as TV Rain and BBC Russian service.

Russian authorities also blocked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. The only Western media platform that is not blocked in Russia now is YouTube, because it is very popular, and blocking it could cause problems with other Google services, like Google Play market.

Even though BBC Russian service is blocked in Russia, people can still watch it on VPN. Last month VPN was the most popular downloaded Google Play service, as means for reaching independent news sources about the war.

Truthmeter.mk:  Does Putin’s regime have support among ordinary citizens?

AZ: A lot of people really support the war, and it’s not only about propaganda, which was preparing people for this war for 8 years, since Crimea action. Although state propaganda was really preparing people, saying the war is good and Ukraine is a fake country, within the post-imperial context it also raised some negative feelings in people's minds.

We can’t say that this is only Putin’s war. Although I’m sure that if we had another president who didn’t step up to prepare people for this war, we wouldn’t see this much support. People support it.

There are situations when relatives from Ukraine send videos and photos to their relatives in Russia and the relatives say, “that is fake.” In some moment they ignore the reality and if you ignore the reality, it’s like it doesn’t exist.

Some people try to protest, but it is very dangerous in Russia, so a lot of people left the country and some were arrested. Some sources say that 300,000 people left Russia since the war started, not just journalists. I don’t know if these numbers are real, but I know that a lot of people left the country. They just don’t want to live in a country that started a war with the neighbor.

But, people will feel the effects of the war later. In a half of year or after one year. I think people will be changing their mind about this war, step by step, due to economy crises. But this process can’t happen fast. If people realize and admit that this war is a crime, it will ruin the whole picture in their mind, from psychological point of view. It is a lengthy process, and we can’t expect it to happen tomorrow.

Image courtesy of Giovana Fleck.

For more information about this topic, see our special coverage Russia invades Ukraine.

Written by Metamorphosis Foundation

Bulgarian climate activists: ‘Mother Earth is part of the fight for women’s rights’

Originally published on Global Voices

‘Mother Earth is a part of women's struggle!’ was among the messages at the Women’s Rights March in Sofia, Bulgaria on March 8, 2020, emphasizing the link between women’s rights and environmental problems. Photo: Darina Kokonova/personal archive, used with permission via BlueLink.

This article by Velina Barova originally appeared on BlueLink Stories, an e-magazine covering Central and Eastern Europe. A lightly edited version is republished here via a content-sharing partnership with Global Voices.

The fight to reduce climate-damaging emissions is a fight for women’s rights. This conclusion is being reached by more and more advocates of both causes all over the world, including in Bulgaria. On the eve of the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, they called for negotiations and policies that give women a voice and seek solutions to the specific negative effects that climate change has on them.

At the Women’s Rights March in Sofia on May 8, 2020, among all the bright messages related to the cause, one poster stood apart. It crossed the usual boundaries of talking about women’s rights and invited a broader discussion — “Mother Earth is a part of women’s struggle.”

“Perhaps both sides are treated with equal contempt,” the author of the poster said a year and a half later. The young activist Darina Kokonova explains that through the play on words, she had presented the Earth as a mother who gave birth to people and takes care of them — like all women and mothers. Kokonova had prepared the poster for the protests of the youth movement “Fridays for the Future of Bulgaria,” part of the international climate movement started by Greta Thunberg in 2018.

As a participant in various activist groups, Kokonova is involved in many causes. Often, while demonstrating in the street for a cause, she encounters questions about why she is not protesting for another or a third. “I’m protesting!” is her usual and honest response. “It is very uncomfortable that people do not make the connection between different causes; for me, they are parts of a bigger one,” she explains. And she feels that this perspective is missing in the women’s movements in Bulgaria.

Climate change and women’s rights are topics under one discussion, activist Darina Kokonova (on the right) believes. Photo: Darina Kokonova/personal archive, used with permission via BlueLink.

We all come from nature, and we all detach ourselves from it to some extent, Kokonova reminds us, but she believes that women’s connection to nature is stronger because of their ancient role in caring for children and the home. In 2020, she painted four portraits of women from civic movements around the world, in honour of their struggles and the domestic work that accompanies them. The portraits are painted with charcoal on sheets, with spots of colour from all-natural materials that are associated with housework — beets, paprika, turmeric, baking soda, spinach. She noted:

“Women are often the first to see the negative effects of climate change because they work with the soil and are dependent on it, especially outside cities.”

A woman’s perspective

Women’s rights are strongly linked to climate justice, believes Rada Elenkova of the Bulgarian Women’s Fund. Photo: Bulgarian Women’s Fund, used with permission.

Women’s rights are strongly linked to climate justice, Rada Elenkova of the Bulgarian Women’s Fund said. “Climate change affects women to a great extent, depriving them of their rights and access to resources.” And these are just some of the specific consequences of climate change:

“Poverty, both in Bulgaria and worldwide, is feminised — a much larger part of the poor population are women. This deprives them of access to information and adequate solutions for their health and protection of their rights.”

Women and families headed by women are more likely to live in unsuitable low-value housing, making them vulnerable to floods, storms, earthquakes and landslides, according to “General Recommendation No. 37 on Gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change,” published by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 2018. According to the UN, “80% of people displaced by climate change are women.”

At the same time, the destruction of basic infrastructure could reduce the quality and accessibility of sexual and reproductive health services, leading to unplanned pregnancies and deaths at birth, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Women and girls are also at increased risk of gender-based violence, including sexual violence and exploitation, domestic violence, and early or forced marriage, during and after natural disasters, CEDAW said. Climate change is pushing girls in northern Kenya back to traditional practices such as early marriage and genital mutilation, the Pulitzer Center reported in March 2020. The investigation describes how, for example, three drought seasons followed by a wave of climate change-related locusts lead to resource depletion and death among animals; this, in turn, forces desperate families to take their daughters out of school, send them abroad for circumcision ceremonies to countries where this is possible, and then marry them off in Kenya for money.

Climate change can also exacerbate inequalities in the labour market, where women face a number of challenges. As a result of natural disasters, they can be expected to meet the increased expectations and needs of their families, which will make it difficult for them to return to the labour market, summarises the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Women in agriculture

A year ago, Darina Kokonova went with her grandmother to the market in a small town in Dobrudja. Hearing the conversations between people there, she could sense their anxiety — the harvest was small because the year had been dry. “Very often, these conversations do not take place in the cities, but people in the village experience this reality — both droughts and floods,” Kokonova noted.

“Perhaps the women most affected by climate change are those who work in agriculture as small producers, including organic producers,” said Radostina Slavkova of the environmental association “For the Earth.” It is extremely important for them to have a system for timely warnings for natural disasters, especially for extreme rainfall but also for drought, Slavkova concludes. “If a drought is expected in Bulgaria, the crops that are sown must be more drought resistant. We have regions where this is the main source of living.”

Slavkova also draws attention to women who live in coal mining regions and have suffered from the negative effects of working in this industry throughout their lives. At the same time, they are exposed to the negative effects of natural disasters, which are caused by climate change, she said. That is why demanding climate justice covers both the struggle for human rights and women’s rights, she said.

Justice policies 

One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to combat climate change focuses on capacity-building in the least developed countries, with a special focus on women, youth, and local and marginalised communities. Support for these communities is extremely important in Bulgaria, activists of the Bulgarian Women's Fund believe.

In early 2021, the fund launched a new program, “Equality and Climate Justice.” It offers expert training to those interested in tackling climate change and addressing social inequalities and lets parties compete for projects that address these issues, as well as engage local communities to address them. The program aims to get women and people from vulnerable groups, remote settlements and marginalised communities involved in the debate on climate change, giving them information on climate change and its social consequences.

“In the long run, these people will be hardest hit by climate change. They make the least contribution to climate change and are deprived of a number of rights such as access to information and resources. All this puts them in the awkward position of being people without a voice, who are far from the decision-making processes,” explains Rada Elenkova, the coordinator of the program.

The importance of gender aspects was also emphasised by the Paris Climate Agreement, which Bulgaria ratified in 2016. In December 2019, the parties decided to appoint national coordinators for gender equality and climate change. However, Bulgaria is not among the countries that have appointed such a coordinator.

Radostina Slavkova of the environmental association ‘For the Earth.’ Photo: Ivan Donchev with the support of the Civil Association “Equal BG”, used with permission via BlueLink.

There are more women among climate activists and expert organisations, Radostina Slavkova observed. However, women are still underrepresented in climate negotiations at the highest level. On December 10, 2020, more than 400 women climate leaders signed an open letter to the British government calling for a “balanced representation” of men and women in the high-level team of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November 2021 in Glasgow. At the time of sending this open letter, less than 25 percent of key positions for the upcoming conference were held by women, Euronews reported.

Slavkova sees one of the possible solutions to this problem in the European Climate Law, adopted by the European Parliament in June 2021. It aims to limit European carbon emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and achieve climate neutrality by 2050:

“The faster we manage to reduce emissions, the greater the chance for all vulnerable groups, including women, to suffer less damage.”

“The European Climate Law obliges states to involve all affected groups, and each EU member state is committed to doing so through its local laws,” added Plamen Peev, senior analyst at BlueLink Foundation for environmental policies. In March 2021, BlueLink compared the European Climate Law with Bulgarian climate legislation and formulated recommendations for its improvement.

One of the initiatives aimed to support the implementation of the European Climate Law is the establishment of the European Climate Pact, which invites people, communities and organisations to take part in climate action and build a greener Europe. “It will make it much easier to hear the voice of women from the affected areas, professions and sectors and to have a bigger voice and role in decision-making,” Slavkova said, noting that it is not yet clear how the mechanism will work exactly.

In order for the decisions to be discussed by the widest possible circle of people, climate activists recommend that this should be organised in a format of citizen climate assemblies, where both experts and citizens can participate and share their perspectives, including that of women’s rights, Slavkova added.

Meanwhile, talks on climate change are taking place not only at high-level forums but also on the streets — at events for supposedly other causes. Darina Kokonova draws attention to the idea of ​​thinking of the Earth not only as a mother, but also as a sister — with a sense of solidarity and mutual connection: “For generations, people have had a connection to their environment because they realise they depend on it.”

Written by BlueLink

100,330 is the number of new COVID-19 cases for one month

Originally published on Global Voices

Security staff checks COVID-19 passes of visitors to the Mall of Sofia, November 6, 2021. Photo by Ruslan Trad, used with permission.

One would think that the political crisis, lack of a government, and the holding of the third consecutive parliamentary elections in a year are hard enough situations for Bulgaria, but on November 1, the country with a population of nearly 7 million, hit a tragic new COVID-19 record—over 6,000 new cases and over 300 deaths. Honestly, I, and I'm pretty sure others in the country, don't even know how to describe the failure, tragedy, and stubbornness that led us here.

Bulgaria has the EU’s lowest vaccination rate, while widespread vaccine hesitancy fueled by misinformation and a lackluster awareness campaign comes amid political turmoil. As the COVID crisis unfolds and affects more and more sectors of the economy and society, the Bulgarian state is making a transition from more than a decade of rule by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (Gerb) party. Borisov stepped back after nearly a year of anti-corruption protests, marked by police violence and wiretapping of political opponents, and even protesters.

This toxic situation was preceded by impunity scandals linked to the Prosecutor General, Ivan Geshev, for refusing to investigate a number of Bulgarian politicians and businessmen who were sanctioned by the U.S. government in June under the Magnitsky Act for links to corruption and human rights abuses. The scandal has become one of the main topics dividing the political elite, and while the caretaker government published a list of 33 companies and 21 individuals connected to blacklisted moguls, the judiciary has not yet taken action against them. Incidentally, Bulgaria is the only European Union member state whose citizens are included in this list.

Fast testing of COVID-19 offered to visitors of Mall of Sofia, Nov 6, 2021. Photo by Ruslan Trad, used with permission.

While Bulgaria initially reacted quickly by taking strong measures against COVID-19 in March 2020, Borisov's subsequent handling of the pandemic has drawn sharp criticism because the country was severely affected during the autumn months after a loosening of restrictions over the summer. The interim ministers appointed by President Rumen Radev, with whom Borisov has had a long feud, fared no better—the statistics are grim: 3,117 people in Bulgaria who had tested positive for COVID-19 died in October 2021; 100,330 is the number of new cases for one month, the Sofia Globe reported. November can be even harder with all the anti-measures protests going on.

At the time of writing, the whole territory of Bulgaria is already in so-called “dark red zones,” as the cases of COVID-19 infections have passed over 800 per 100,000. A partial lockdown is expected if the number of new cases increases to 1,000/100,000 level, which is already a reality in some of the provinces in the western part of the country, including the capital.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people, seven-day rolling average for Bulgaria, European Union and Europe. Graph by Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.

In the background of increasing disinformation and spreading of fake news, as of the beginning of November, there are over 7,000 people hospitalised. In most municipalities, there are no intensive care unit (ICU) beds available. A doctor who works in one of the busiest COVID-19 wards in Sofia told me on October 28:

“Ruslan, I don't know when I will return home – probably not this week.”

While restaurant owners protest against COVID-19 certificates, in Bulgaria's countryside the situation is grim, and there are no available beds in many hospitals.

In the northwestern part of the country, in the provinces of Vidin, Montana, Vratsa, and Lom, there is a lack of hospital staff. Ambulances rushing to regional hospitals can often be seen on the roads. The situation is similar in other parts of Bulgaria. However, the majority of the people are still resisting vaccinations.

My cousin is a doctor near Tarnovo, she's already in her 70's and still working. Yes, Bulgaria needs to get more people vaccinated, the doctors are suffering.

— nana (@nsc_nana) October 29, 2021

As I mentioned before, the political situation is contributing to the crisis, as the country has been continuously in-between elections for over a year.  There is an intensification of fake news and disinformation, including dozens of sham sites and social media accounts using the stolen personal information of medics. Several investigations are underway, with no clear results so far. Political parties do not take decisive positions on vaccination at this crucial moment, and according to the doctors I spoke with, we can already talk about “a COVID-19 disaster.”

Instead of creating a unified campaign to explain the situation and why it is important for people to be vaccinated, politicians of all colors of the political spectrum are competing in their silence and dubious statements. With the November 14th parliamentary and presidential elections approaching, no one doubts that these positions will remain the same, because of fear of losing voters. Low voter turnout is expected, fueled by apathy and frustration in general, and the COVID-19 crisis is further contributing to this situation.

“Each day Bulgaria loses the equivalent of one plane crash.” Bulgaria has the highest death rate in the world, yet its leaders don’t seem to want to do anything about it as the November elections draw closer.

My latest for @euronews:https://t.co/RPfSnKLRfd

— Aleksandar Brezar (@brezaleksandar) October 29, 2021

Furthermore, one of the police unions in Bulgaria announced last month that it opposed the introduction of COVID-19 certificates. The police insist on an awareness campaign and a “grace period” while only 30 per cent of law enforcement officers have been vaccinated so far.

The use of the COVID-19 crisis for political dividends has led to more severe manifestations. In late October, interim Education Minister Nikolai Denkov was attacked by supporters of the ultra-nationalist political party Vazrazhdane (Revival), one of the main forces behind the protests against COVID-19 measures. Fortunately, the minister was not seriously injured, but the case is indicative of tensions and how an unresolved crisis could lead to serious consequences.

Supporters of Vazrazhdane, whose leader is also a presidential candidate and is accused of having strong links to the Kremlin, sometimes use social discontent to gain visibility. For example, the attack on Minister Denkov took place during a protest by medics.

Another nationalist group is also involved in provoking social tensions in the background of the COVID-19 crisis. At least one vaccination center was attacked in the past few months, while medics were threatened for doing their job.

The Bulgarian paramilitary group “BNO Shipka” attacked and closed a vaccination point in Varna, Bulgaria today (https://t.co/w43oy1zbKm). A couple years ago @ruslantrad & @avramovok published an article on this organization's “patrols” targeting migrants.https://t.co/RhtLAI6yOk

— Bellingcat (@bellingcat) September 20, 2021

Meanwhile, the black market price for a fake vaccination certificate or negative PCR test just hit 350 euros. In September, the going rate was between 200 to 300 euros, as reported by Balkan Insight.

Portugal, the most vaccinated country in the EU, has a 14 day covid death rate of 0.6
Bulgaria, the least vaccinated country in the EU, has a 14 day covid death rate of 26.5#COVIDVaccine #COVID19

— Covid Data Check (@CovidDataCheck) November 2, 2021

The whole situation is indicative of the social problems in Bulgaria which have been developing for years without receiving the necessary attention, not only from within but also from abroad.

A Bulgarian shop requiring use of Green Pass, the EU Digital COVID Certificate, in Sofia, Bulgaria, Nov 6, 2021. Photo by Ruslan Trad, used with permission.

The lack of a quality political life also affects the general apathy and reluctance of people to comply with recommendations when they come from institutions and the government. The decline in confidence in leaders, politicians, and authorities, is currently reflected in the attitude to the COVID-19 crisis. As some analysts commented, some of the social links among people are falling apart because of the polar division on a number of topics, and this is one of the worst consequences of the crisis.

However, there are some good examples. Local mayors in municipalities are doing everything possible to encourage residents to get vaccinated and some are succeeding. Organizations are trying to deliver food and essentials to the medics in the ICU wards; some do so completely voluntarily.

If there is any positive development, it will be not because of the situation in the country, but despite it, and thanks to efforts by dedicated individual citizens.

Written by Ruslan Trad