OMO ILINDEN PIRIN

PRESS RELEASE, 6 MAR 2001

ANTI-MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN MARS BULGARIAN CENSUS

Bulgaria is presently conducting a national census that will end on 15 March. As usual after 1948, Macedonians are forced to declare their ethnic and linguistic identity under the "Other" entry since census forms only allow entries for Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma. In order to better inform the population in the Pirin area the outlawed political party OMO Ilinden PIRIN printed and distributed about 80,000 leaflets. The leaflets contain information to the public regarding everybody's right to freely declare
their ethnic and linguistic identity and calls Macedonians to do that without fear of retribution. However, according to today's reports from the area now there is frequent talk on the radio and TV that by declaring to be Macedonian one risks his pension and/or state employee.

In the article "Leaflets call Bulgarians to declare themselves Macedonians" the 'Trud' newspaper from 3 March writes that the Blagoevgrad branch of the ultra nationalist VMRO party issued an alert about possible "falsification of the census because of the presence of OMO Ilinden PIRIN sympathizers and members among the census takers." In letter to all institutions the VMRO calls for adequate measures claiming national security is being threatened and asks a stop to the activities of the "illegal Macedonist organization."

In the same newspaper in another article there are news that following the leaflet distribution the State Attorney for the Blagoevgrad area filed charges against "unknown persons" for "causing national hatred." The police have been ordered to discover the printing house where the leaflets have been printed, the persons who ordered the printing and the persons who distributed them. The article says that the law considers such acts felonies punishable with prison terms of up to 6 years. The article also brings the statement by OMO Ilinden PIRIN President Mr. Singartiiski who qualified the charges as ridiculous as all leaflets carry the information that they have been printed by order of the party an OMO Ilinden PIRIN protests the intimidation campaign by the Bulgarian
authorities and media whose obvious scope is to prevent Macedonians from freely declaring their ethnic identity in the ongoing census. The party has been outlawed by an act of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court and is presently banned from participating in political activities.

A lawsuit is pending at the European Court for Human Rights.

OMO Ilinden PIRIN Information Service