16702 | 26 Sept. 2024 | 09:10
A call for a fair judicial process and effective sentences for the perpetrators of the so-called "revival process" has been made in a signal submitted today to the Military District Prosecutor's Office by the chairman of MRF and members of the political group, Delyan Peevski, Yordan Tsonev, Halil Letifov and Hamid Hamid - Deputy Chairmen of MRF in the 50th National Assembly.
"For over 30 years, the prosecutor's office has been conducting an investigation, which has however failed to bring to justice the instigators, as well as the perpetrators of crimes aimed at the destruction of Bulgarian Muslims because of their ethnic and religious identity," the DPS signal to the prosecutor's office said.
By the end of 2023. The civil organization "Justice, Rights and Cultural Cooperation in the Balkans", registered in the city of Bursa, Turkey, has turned to the "Access to Information Program". The organization seeks justice for the victims of the totalitarian communist regime during the so-called "Revival Process"[1].
The organization was founded in 2004. in order to protect the rights of individuals affected by the unlawful deprivation of liberty in prisons and labor camps on Belene island in the 1970s and 1980s, who were mistreated and intimidated in order to indoctrinate and subjugate ethnic Turkish individuals living in Bulgaria.
The organization seeks information with the help of the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) from the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria regarding what actions or inactions have been taken by the authorities to establish the facts, conduct an effective investigation, and punish those responsible for the events in the late 1980s which resulted in violence, violation of rights, and displacement of over 350,000 ethnic Turkish Bulgarians abroad.
The specific questions submitted with the request for access to public information are about the number of pre-trial proceedings initiated in connection with crimes related to the so-called "Revival Process"; the prosecutor's files related to such crimes; the indictments brought to court, the outcomes of each case, etc.
From the response of the Prosecutor's Office, we understand that in Bulgaria there is no special register or report of pre-trial proceedings and cases for crimes during the "Revival Process". Therefore, this data cannot be distinguished from the available information collected and summarized under the provisions of the Penal Code.
Subsequently, the civil organization is seeking full access to the entire volume of information in the case file. No. 2903/14.07.2003, initiated at the request of Member of Parliament Mr. Ahmed Yusein with the question "Will there be a fair and humane resolution to the issue of the so-called 'Revival Process' for the period 1984-1989 in the Bulgarian judiciary according to European standards?"
The response from the prosecutor's office states that the requested file No. 2903/14.07.2003 has been destroyed with a record of destruction of non-valuable documents with expired storage period from 07.02.2023.
The organization continues to request documents: the record and protocol of destruction and information about the commission that carried out the review and evaluation of documents in 2023 with the purpose of destroying non-valuable documents of the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Following the provided information about the documents and the commission for destruction, citizens of "Justice, Rights and Cultural Cooperation in the Balkans" continue to seek answers to the questions of who and when will ensure a fair process for the guilty and transparency for the sufferings and victims of the communist regime, who were affected during the so-called "Revival Process".
Marking the 35th anniversary of the so-called "Revival Process" this year, in May, let's take a look at some of the human stories behind the goals and activities of the organization and the motivation of people to join and seek information and justice for themselves and their loved ones.
Immediately after the fall of the communist regime, I started searching for justice.
This is the story of Sabri Iskender.
In creating the organization, we followed the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria and named it the Democratic League for the Protection of Human Rights in Bulgaria. This is the biggest work of my life, my biggest weapon.
My name is Sabri Iskender, I am 76 years old. I was born in the village of Zhalt Bryag, in Sliven.
I have been on the State Security records since 1972, when I was 25 years old.
At 27, I ended up in prison. There has always been discrimination and they made false accusations against me. I got into an argument with a senior officer who mistreated me, saying that I was Turkish. I called him a chauvinist and he twisted my words. At the time, Ilka Damyanova was a prosecutor in Sliven, at the Military Prosecutor's Office, and she gave me a suspended sentence of 6 months for a period of 2 years. The police appealed in the Supreme Court and I was sent to Stara Zagora prison for 6 months. It turned out very well. I learned some things. Prison is a school, a university. There I learned from Bulgarians that they want to create an organization for human rights, but they made a mistake by not depositing it in a foreign country. They changed their program, saying they created an anti-state organization and were sentenced.
I was arrested again on January 17, 1985. I was a taxi driver. A State Security agent stopped me while I was driving. I know him, but he doesn't know I know who he is. I was 38 years old, had a family and 3 children. He told me to drive towards the city baths, but on the way we had to pass through the police station. I understood what it was all about. Before the Ministry of Interior, 4 people met me, preparing an operation. We went up to the room of the head of the investigative department - Georgi Georgiev. Several people gathered and started bringing folders with files. They said there were more, but to not scare me, they didn't bring them all.
The boss asked me: "What crimes against the People's Republic of Bulgaria have you committed for which the security forces have not held you accountable?". I said, "I haven't committed any crimes against the PRB, give evidence of my crimes." The folders had 600-700 pages. I pulled out a sheet - it was about me, I pulled out another - also about me. They said that I've been telling that when I was in Turkey, green plums were more expensive than oranges. Or that I said I liked something there. That I was driving Turks in my taxi.
The first evening the investigation began at 7:00 PM and ended at 1:00 AM - 5 hours and 5 minutes later. They told me that they will lock me up in a cell alone to drive me crazy. For three days, no one came to see me. They asked me if it was nice to be alone. I told them that I am very grateful, it’s very nice for me to be alone and calm. Immediately, they brought another person to me.
They detained me for one day before they started changing our names, it was a preventative measure. They kept me in a cell, in the detention center for 111 days, which seemed like 111 years to me, with constant harassment, abuse and beatings.
The Chief of State Security in the town of Sliven, Col. Iliya Ivanov Iliev, sent me straight to Belene without a sentence, saying that I had talked too much and should not be released. It was even worse for those with a sentence. There, I spent one year and then I was transferred to the village Kameno pole in Vratsa. After attempting to escape across the border to Yugoslavia through Mount Kom with my 16-year-old son, I was then imprisoned for 2 years. A total of 4 years and 4 months.
After my release, I was home for 39 days and then moved back to Kameno Pole.
While in prison, I had already planned that once I was released, I would gather like-minded individuals, a philosopher and a teacher, and create a program and constitution for an organization. In order to succeed, we first went to the British Embassy, where we called in a representative from the Turkish Embassy and presented them with our organization's program in English and Turkish. This was to protect ourselves and prevent the authorities from altering our program, as they had done with other organizations, and accusing us of breaking the law. Our goal was for the program to be read in the Western world, so that it could not be altered here. We announced it on Radio Free Europe and BBC. Then we sent it to Todor Zhivkov, the chairman of the National Assembly, to the newspapers "Fatherland Front", "Workers' Cause", "Agricultural Banner", and to the Chief Prosecutor of the People's Republic of Bulgaria.
In creating the organization, we based ourselves on the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria and named it the Democratic League for the Protection of Human Rights in Bulgaria. This is the biggest work of my life, a great weapon. It was created completely legally on November 13, 1988, based on Article 52, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bulgaria - citizens have the right to create organizations with non-political purposes. At that time, in Sofia, on November 10, Zhelyo Zhelev created the Club for Support of Publicity and Restructuring.
The communists were most afraid of the Independent Society for Human Rights Protection of Petar Manolov and our organization, which was the most numerous. They were afraid that we had connections with the CIA and the Turkish intelligence, which is why they were only monitoring us.
In May 1989, we submitted a protest letter against Todor Zhivkov for his policy regarding the Turkish question. We invited him to sit at a round table with the Democratic League for Human Rights in Bulgaria. We also sent a copy of the letter to the newspaper "Trud" and "Radio Free Europe." The next day, they came to interrogate me. I started a hunger strike. Then the State Security came to take me and drive me to the border with Turkey. They had made a passport for me. The train was heading to Edirne, but I did not have a visa. I was taken from Kapulule to Edirne and interrogated for several hours for reliability and then released to go to Bursa, where I have relatives. I have two sons and one daughter, who joined me in Bursa. From there, I went to Ankara.
Immediately after the fall of the communist regime, I began to seek justice. I wanted to prosecute Todor Zhivkov and his accomplices. Several organizations were formed. I became a member of the organization in Bursa.
We, from our civil organization, seek justice for those who have committed atrocities, who have killed, as well as for the direct instigators of the so-called "Revival process". Most of them have passed away. The rest - why has the prosecution not brought them to trial? No one has been punished. I doubt whether what we want will come true.
I am looking for information about that period from the very beginning. We asked the Sofia Military Prosecutor's Office - it was strictly confidential. We requested information from the Chief Prosecutor's Office, we also met with Ivan Geshev. Some documents were destroyed, others provided vague answers. The question of responsibility for a fair process between the National Assembly and the Prosecutor's Office is still ongoing. Since October last year, we have been reading the decisions that have been made - about 30,000 pages, 166 volumes. In my opinion, no one will be convicted. Most of the direct perpetrators are no longer alive, but there are still living perpetrators who have abused their official position.
Society should know, the youth should know.
The story of Nazife
I will speak as a mother and wife of a victim in the "Revival Process". I will speak on behalf of all the mothers who suffered during that time.
My name is Nazife Mustafa Mümün, I was born in Kardzhali and I am 70 years old. I will try to briefly tell you about my feelings and experiences.
I grew up in an orphanage - a home for children and orphans, where I also completed my primary education, as well as my late husband Şaban Mümün. We studied there because we had no other option, there was no school in our village, we didn't have the means to travel back and forth, and our parents couldn't afford to clothe us, as we were from large families. We completed our basic education in the orphanage. I am very grateful to the teachers, they took great care of us, raised us to speak honestly, not to lie or steal. They gave us everything that a mother could teach her children - much more.
The time came, we completed our education. My husband went on to study, while I worked to support him. And so our children grew up. I will also speak on his behalf, because we grew up together and knew everything about each other. He was an excellent student, very intelligent, and wanted to study law, but he was accepted in Plovdiv, at the Food and Flavour Institute. Since our financial resources were very limited, I decided to start working so he could get an education. In the year before he graduated, 1978-1979, a person from the State Security in Kardzhali visits him and says: "You are a smart boy, very well-read. The state has studied you and will continue to study you, but you must work for us." He says: "Yes, I am grateful to the state for providing me with accommodation during my studies, for finishing my secondary education in industrial chemistry, also supported by the state. I am grateful to this state. However, I have human dignity, which I cannot trample on to become your informant." They came once, twice, three times; telling him: "We will give you an apartment, we will give you a job at the Ministry of Interior, at the Ministry, as long as you work for us, promote the "rebirth process". We will give you an apartment in Sofia. We will give you a car. We will arrange your life, like you've never dreamed of." He says: "I am a child from a poor family. I love Bulgaria. We were born here. But I cannot betray society and nationality in which I was born. I was born a Turk. My mother doesn't know a single word in Bulgarian, my father was a common worker his whole life. I just want to get an education, to be able to provide for my family and see them happy and peaceful. That is my only goal in life, I have no other. I am a person with broad views, understanding, you cannot pressure me to work for you." And indeed, when he graduated, he was a scholarship recipient at "Balkantourist" and had to start working there. He presented his diploma and said, "I came to work." "No," they replied, "you are crossed out, you cannot work here, look for a job elsewhere." Somehow, we found work as a restaurant manager in a tavern and he started working, but what can I say... He did not get the desired job, we had a down payment for an apartment - they crossed it out, for a car, everything - red, red! You have no rights.
I got pregnant in 1982. When my little daughter was born, her father really wanted to name her with a name that he always had in mind, he liked it. In the hospital, they said - you cannot use this name, it's Turkish. He was really well-read, he filed an application in Kardzhali, in court, that he wants this name and the court really granted it, because a person can choose the name of their child. We won for the name, but then hell began for him, hell for our family, for our children.
In 1984, he was constantly pressured at work - to appear on television, to do propaganda - for communism, for the fact that we were once Bulgarians. We are not interested in that. The past is past. A person feels the way they are in the moment.
One day he was detained. They took him from work - of course, people from the staff testified that he talked against the state, which is not true, so they could have the right to detain him. A false report - he was an intelligent man, he would never involve himself in such terrible things. I was at work when my sister came and shouted, "Sister, they detained brother Shaban." I got upset, left work, went to the police station. It was December , 28th, before New Year, winter, snow, moisture - I was in sandals, in such a panic - you don't know how you're dressed, what you have on your feet. We lived in the third house of the police station, next to the Party house. I go in there: "Why did you detain my husband, why?" "Who is it?" "Just who you took." "There's no one like that here." "How come?!? You took him with handcuffs, in a police car." "Woman," they shout at me, "you want us to detain you too - get out of here, don't go up the stairs." I go back home, warm up and go again. In the morning - I go - I come back. After that - to work, without having any sleep. My children are upset, they are on their feet, crying, I am just paralyzed. I was a cashier at a snack bar near the Ministry of Interior. All the employees in the police force pass through us, in the morning, at lunch, in the evening, and I know them by their faces. One employee - I still remember him and I am grateful to him because he saved the life of my husband, Demirev, a young man - he called out, "Why were you crying?".
"Last night they arrested my husband. I was in front of the Ministry of Interior the whole night and they told me that he wasn't there". Demirev told me, "On lunch break, come see me". I went. They opened two doors and brought my husband, so far away that I couldn't even recognize him. He was beaten up, his head was swollen, his eye - bloodshot, his face was purple - I couldn't recognize my husband. They showed him to me for one or two seconds and then took him back inside.
They released him the same day. That's why I thank this man, Demirev, if he had stayed even one more night, he wouldn't have survived until the third day. For 15 days he couldn't get out of bed, and had to sign in with the police in the morning and evening and not leave the city. My little daughter was 3 years old, and if he tried to hug her, she was scared because of his face...
My poor children. A new child came to my school, a Turk, who doesn't know Bulgarian. My 11-month-old child is in daycare and kindergartens, knows Bulgarian, and wants to help, explaining what is what, hidden behind the door. The teacher, in order to take him out, pulls him so hard that his fingernail is torn off. I couldn't even ask why did you do this. And do you know why? So they wouldn't fire me.
After 15 days, my husband started shaking. One day he went to the store for yogurt. He left at 11 o'clock, it's 6-7 now - he's not back. I went to the police station to see if they had arrested him and I see him, coming down the road, carrying a bag with jars and they are hitting his hand. I understood the situation. They beat him, they dragged him - that's why he didn't come to sign. But he's not okay, he can't. An investigator takes him to a forest, makes him kneel in front of a big cliff and says to him - "here, I will kill you, the wolves and bears will eat you and no one will be held accountable, we have the right."
After that, he stopped eating. He said - "they will kill me, it's better if I kill myself. The situation is very serious and they are capable of doing anything."
About 10 days passed, he was not eating and I was not myself. My colleague, my second mother, Radka Stoyanova, who was by my side from the beginning to the end, helped me when my husband was studying, when he was detained, she helped me get him to a psychiatrist. He was treated for 2 and a half months. They released him on home leave for one day to see the children, I went to work, I haven't even started yet and the children came - "They took daddy again". They beat him again and the next day they take him to Belene. For 3 months we couldn't understand where he was - only then it became clear that the detainees without trial and verdict are taken to Belene.
That's when my torments began. My 3-year-old daughter, my 13-year-old daughter, just going through puberty. She learned in school right away between the kids and people out of fear, they stopped coming home - my mother, my father were afraid to come. Living right next to the Ministry of Interior, no one can come visit us, no one can lend a helping hand, whether it's for our children or for other needs.
Both of my children fell into depression. The older one had a big delay with their lessons, bad grades, became isolated and stopped talking or going out. Our life was terrible.
We went to Ruse for a meeting, and they told us, "It won't happen today." I made sure to take the day off from work, picked up the kids, went there and no meeting. The older one understands, but the younger one cries - he wants to see his dad. There is so much to tell him, so many things we've been through. That's the least I can say - I could talk for 3 days because it's been 4 years.
From Belene, they moved him to Bobovdol, then they evicted him to the village of Ovcharci, in the Kyustendil region. We went to meetings from time to time. We couldn't move there because I had to work and take care of the children. Then they released him, he came back and started working at the meat processing plant.
One evening, in 1989, they came from the State Security and said - "you have 24 hours to leave the country, give us 2 photos". After two hours they brought the passports. It was a difficult time, we didn't have suitcases, the stores were also empty. I had a sleeping bag, I put some clothes for the children, a gas stove, a pot, spoons. And so we took the train from Sofia to Yugoslavia. In Belgrade we got off and asked for asylum at the Turkish embassy. They flew us to Izmir where we had distant relatives. They welcomed us. They gave us a small apartment, mattresses. We found jobs - we cleaned in the banks, it was difficult - we didn't know the language; for the children it was hard, the youngest one didn't know Turkish at all. We also faced great difficulties there.
My husband passed away from cancer. We used to come to Bulgaria a few times with him before that. In the Military District, he went to give testimony and to hold accountable the officials responsible for everything that happened to us and the others. It wasn't just him, there were victims and beaten people living in panic around us in Kardzhali. It's well-known. At gatherings, when we go to visit - everyone talks about their pain.
My husband used to say - "I hope there will be some justice, that they will be punished". He believed too much in the justice system in Bulgaria and read a lot about this topic. He gave testimony, but didn't live to see even a tiny bit of relief in his soul for some justice, that these sufferings that a society has endured will not remain unpunished.
We, as a civil organization called "Justice, Rights and Cultural Cooperation in the Balkans", demand for there to be punishments, so that this does not happen again in the future. Society must know, the youth must know, that what happened was against human rights. We are walking down this path and will continue until the end, there will be no backing down. Because I couldn't provide for my children as I should have due to financial opportunities and depression. I couldn't be a productive parent, I constantly cried - here and in Turkey. We want justice, I believe that the laws will prevail and someone will be punished.
What we are doing is very important in a historical sense and for justice, for the rule of law.
The story of Safie.
We are all one big family. We are united in our search for justice.
My name is Safie Alis Yurdakul. I was born in 1976 in Razgrad. My father was born in 1936 and was a Turkish language teacher. When they banned the teaching of Turkish in schools, my father was fired and started working as a driver.
I do not use the term "Revival Process". That is not true. A person cannot be born twice. It is a crime against the most basic human rights. I call it a deliberate crime.
In school, we were all children of Turkish descent. They took us to a camp where there were soldiers and told us that they would teach us how to monitor terrorists. We were all under the age of 11. They woke us up in the middle of the night with dogs to search for terrorists. When my father found out what we were doing, he got angry and wrote a letter of dissatisfaction to the director. The director punished me by making me stand on one leg.
In 1985, I was 8-9 years old. My father had been beaten several times by the police before, and a process had already been started against us. Then they arrested him as a criminal. They took him to Belene. We didn't know what had happened to him. Our whole community was told that he was killed. We held a mevlut (a Muslim prayer for the dead) according to our religion. My mother was left alone with me and my two brothers, and she had to fight to survive.
I don't mention my Bulgarian name because I don't recognize it, I have never recognized it. Both my classmates and I refused to answer if we were called by our new names. All my notebooks were torn apart because they were labeled with our real names. The school continued to put psychological pressure on the children.
Whenever someone came to visit us, they would immediately call the police. All the houses had electricity, except for ours. We were isolated. There was no medical help for us. I was called "daughter of the traitor of the country".
It was state terror. My grandmother wore baggy clothes and a headscarf, once on the street the police cut her clothes. Afterwards, she couldn't leave the house for a long time. Once, on a holiday at school, they tied my older brother's hands and feet with wire, because he was "son of the traitor of the country". No one helped him. The teachers only watched.
One day, they said that our father was alive, in Belene. I was in shock, it was too much for my young mind - crying, then dead, and now alive. Only two people were allowed to go and see him. We decided that our grandmother, my father's mother, and his sister would go. When they returned, my grandmother fell ill and couldn't speak anymore.
Later, we went to see our father. I couldn't recognize him - skinny, with handcuffs; it was a huge trauma for me. My father told us: "I am fine. You stand together and survive."
In 1984-1989 there were 3 camps for Turks - "Belene" on Persin Island; "Zastava" isolation camp also on Persin Island (for leaders, under strict regime, only for 35 people, and Sabri Iskender was there) and in Bobov Dol. After "Belene" most of the prisoners were transferred to Bobov Dol.
My father returned in poor health and could not work. He suffered a brain stroke while in captivity. And he was handcuffed even in the hospital. We were not allowed to visit him.
In 1989 we were expelled, they kicked us out. In 2012 the National Assembly defined this expulsion as "ethnic cleansing". That's what it was.
In 1991 in Istanbul we learned from television that a trial has begun against those responsible for the so-called "Revival process". The concentration camp survivors from Belene, who were deported to Turkey, continued to keep in touch with each other. They and their loved ones burned in a big fire. We were all one. In 1991, we celebrated that the guilty will be punished. We were waiting for someone to contact us about the case. No one told us what was going on. My father and his friends came to Sofia to see if there were any summonses.
In 1991, we established the first "Balkans Association" in Istanbul. It was founded by people who had been in Belene. In 1996, through the consulate in Istanbul, we filed a joint complaint with the Chief Prosecutor's Office against all those responsible for the so-called "Revival Process" for crimes against humanity. These crimes have no statute of limitations. A total of 36 concentration camp survivors signed it. There was no response for several months. We didn't even know the case number or who it was against. In 1997, representatives of the association visited Bulgaria twice and submitted two complaints - to the Chief Prosecutor and to the Military District Prosecutor's Office.
My father passed away in 1998. He told me the truth. I used to have a different understanding. I didn't understand why our father left us alone. After his death, I started looking for documents about him - from the RDVR Razgrad, I went to Belene, where I found out that he had been held without a sentence. In 2001, I came to Bulgaria and gave testimony in the case. That's when I was told that the case would start after a year.
The current civil organization "Justice, Rights and Cultural Cooperation in the Balkans" was established in 2004 in Bursa. I am its chairman, and the founders are concentration camp survivors, some of whom are no longer alive. We are all like one big family. Our search for justice unites us. We don't want anyone to experience something like this again. There must be punishments so it does not repeat itself.
In 2012, I found out that there is a Commission for Dossiers in Bulgaria. There I found many documents about my father. It stated that in 1991 some documents were destroyed. It saddens me that none of the people who destroyed the documents were punished. On this occasion, I talked to journalist Hristo Hristov. Many documents, many evidence of crimes were destroyed in 1991.
We want to see the dossiers. We have submitted requests to the Sofia Military District Prosecutor's Office.
We worked hard to advance the investigation. However, nothing progressed. In 2022, we requested a meeting with the prosecutor in the case known as the "Revival Process". In response, he sent us a decision to terminate the pre-trial proceedings because Georgi Atanasov has passed away. We filed an appeal against this ruling. The Sofia City Court rejected it in just 4 days. We have decided to appeal to the Court of Appeal. We will continue to work to ensure that those responsible are punished. We are working diligently.
The members of the association are around 300-400 people who live all over Turkey - Bursa, Izmir, Edirne, Istanbul. Some of them are even grandchildren of people who were in the Belene camp. We have good relationships with other associations of exiles in Turkey. In Bulgaria, we know "Truth and Memory" by Hristo Hristov and the AIP.
I am collecting documents for the truth from everywhere. What we are doing is very important in a historical sense and for justice and legality. This case, ongoing since 1991, is a psychological pressure on the whole of Bulgaria, on the entire society. To have no justice means that there are still remnants of the totalitarian regime.
Comment from lawyer, attorney Alexander Kashumov, director of the Access to Information Program Foundation (AIP):
It appears that in the most irresponsible institution in Bulgaria, for decades there are and will be traces of inefficiency and outrage.
In this case, it can be said that the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office (SCPO) has responded precisely in accordance with the Law for Access to Public Information (LAPI). There is no unnecessary delay or circumvention of the requests for access by the association. However, shocking things emerge - no one is monitoring the correspondences and procedures related to the so-called "Revival Process," if this response is correct. 21 years ago, in a letter to the National Assembly, the former Chief Prosecutor presented the development of some of the criminal proceedings. It remains unclear what prevented the Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria from revisiting how it gathered the information at the time and updating its data, as well as making it public, or providing it in accordance with the LAPI.
Instead, in 2023, the Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria mercilessly destroyed piles of documents, including the letter to the National Assembly from 2003 and any accompanying documents. This raises other questions - is there a true assessment of the historical and archival value of the documents, or is it just a conveyor belt of destruction? Because it turns out that during the document review and destruction operation in the VKP in 2023, many valuable and historically important materials were also destroyed. Not a single document has survived, possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of pages, all of which were intended for destruction without exception.
The question arises, was the competent authority - the State Agency "Archives" informed, did they take their position and expert knowledge when assessing the documents designated for destruction? Did and when was the last time a Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria sent documents to the State Archive? The answer to all these questions is of crucial importance, as in the years following the adoption of the new Constitution, the prosecutor's office was precisely the institution that, for the most part, failed to prove itself as effective (except for evil), transparent and accountable to citizens and society. Will the traces of ineffective or illegal actions and inactions of this important institution in its fight against crime be erased and will they be eliminated?
Without answering these important questions for society, we will not be able to break free from the grip of lawlessness and entrenched corruption, and confidently embark on the path of freedom, democracy, and human dignity.
[1] According to communist propaganda, the ancestors of the people of the Turkish minority were forcibly "converted to Islam" and therefore the Turks themselves demanded to "restore" their Bulgarian names, as if they were experiencing some kind of "revival". That is why the events were referred to by the authorities as the "Revival Process".
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