Outrage as Bulgarian pro-Kremlin party targets teachers opposed to homophobic law
Outrage has ensued after the Varna branch of Bulgarian pro-Kremlin minority party Vuzrazhdane published a list of educators who signed a petition against recent amendments to education law banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools.
Vuzrazhdane Varna called on parents to demand an explanation from heads of schools where these “genders” – a homophobic misreading of that word peculiar to Bulgaria – were being “parasites” and said that it wanted guarantees that “these persons will not carry out illegal propaganda against the children of Varna.”
Party leader Kostadin Kostadinov said on August 22 that he would lodge a report to the Prosecutor’s Office about the educators opposed to the amendments to the law, though it was not immediately clear on what grounds, given that it is not illegal in Bulgaria to object to legislation approved by Parliament.
As approved at two readings on August 7, the amendments to the Pre-school and School Education Act forbid “propaganda, popularization or instigation in any way whatsoever, whether directly or indirectly, in the educational system of any ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identification otherwise than according to the biological sex”.
Tabled by Vuzrazhdane and approved at second reading with the support of GERB-UDF, Vuzrazhdane, both factions of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the Bulgarian Socialist Party and ITN, the amendments have caused outrage among civil rights groups and there have been public protests. The sole parliamentary group to vote against the second reading was reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB).
President Roumen Radev promulgated the amendments, disregarding calls to veto them.
Critics have noted that the amendments closely resemble similar law in Putin’s Russia.
WCC-DB co-leader Kiril Petkov said that the move by Vuzrazhdane against the petitioners was “an example of political propaganda in school and using our children as a political tool”.
WCC-DB parliamentary leader, former prime minister and former education minister Nikolai Denkov demanded an immediate reaction from the Minister of Education and Science in order to “protect Bulgarian teachers from Vuzrazhdane’s repression.
Denkov described Vuzrazhdane’s action as a “call for lynching”.
The Education Ministry issued a statement on August 22 saying that the Bulgarian teacher has always been free, awake and progressive, and this has made Bulgaria’s children and nation free.
“By preserving this freedom, we preserve our own values, morals and future,” the Education Ministry said.
“Therefore, no form of discrimination and repression against teachers, pupils and parents will be allowed in the Bulgarian education system.
“As before, the Ministry of Education and Science and the institutions in the system of preschool and school education will protect the spirit of tolerance, anti-discrimination, Bulgarian traditions and general human values, as well as the policy of inclusion in the Bulgarian school. Education is a cause for our society, which should unite us, not draw new dividing lines and conflicts,” it said.
GERB-UDF MP Georgi Georgiev said on Facebook: “To put it mildly, I am outraged by the so-called ‘black list’ of Kostadin Kostadinov and Vuzrazhdane, which includes, mind you, Bulgarian teachers who disagree with the controversial amendments to the Preschool and School Education Act”.
The initiator of the petition is Bulgarian language and literature teacher Boris Iliev, who announced on Facebook that he was suspending public access to the list of signatories to the petition to avoid abuse.
“Threats against teachers. Threats against university professors and scientists. Calls for a ‘second people’s court’,” Iliev said, the latter a reference to the kangaroo court instituted after the communist takeover of Bulgaria in the 1940s.
“All illiterately written. Fellow citizens and apparatchiks from You-know-which-party, I don’t know whether to leave you for correction in Bulgarian, or to send you to Germany in the 1930s or just to Bulgaria after September 9,” the latter a further reference to the communist takeover.
“Such a time would suit you, you would feel good in it,” Iliev said.
The Da Bulgaria party, a constituent member of the Democratic Bulgaria coalition, said that just days after the promulgation of the obscurantist amendments to the law, a “public lynching” of teachers had begun.
“A pro-Putin nationalist formation has released a list of names of teachers in Varna who have publicly expressed disagreement with the law and is calling on the public, school principals and the city’s mayor to repress them,” Da Bulgaria said.
“Left-wing pro-Putin formations published names of university professors who exposed the legal amendments. And popular sites circulated on black pads the list with the names of the declared ‘parasitic genders’,” it said.
Da Bulgaria said that this was a flagrant trampling of common human values, of legal rights and freedoms, and of journalistic standards.
It urged the law enforcement authorities to resolutely stop such forms of assault on the person.
“We must not allow fascist outbursts to continue and become normal…if we allow this, we ourselves will lose our freedom.
“Fascism is possible primarily because of the indifference of the majority. Then even that doesn’t matter anymore. We call on citizens, regardless of their political beliefs and biases: people, don’t be indifferent!” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is preparing answers to a query from the European Commission about the adoption of the amendments to the law, and the answer will be prepared by the end of next week, Deputy Minister of Education Emilia Lazarova told Bulgarian National Radio.
(Photo: Ludovic Bertron)
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