site.bta Movement for Rights and Freedoms Alerts Prosecutor General about Nationalists' Blockade of Border with Turkey before March 26 Elections

Movement for Rights and Freedoms Alerts Prosecutor General about Nationalists' Blockade of Border with Turkey before March 26 Elections

Sofia, March 31 (BTA) - Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Chairman Mustafa Karadayi has alerted Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov about "acts of violence on the part of representatives of nationalist entities at the checkpoints on Bulgaria's border with Turkey on March 24," the MRF said in a press release on Friday.

The reference is to several attempts by supporters of the nationalist United Patriots coalition to block the Bulgarian-Turkish border in a bid to prevent the entry of Bulgarian immigrants who were bussed to Bulgaria in large numbers in order to vote in the March 26 early parliamentary elections.

Karadayi insists on the conduct of a check and on the institution of a pretrial proceeding when the relevant facts and circumstances are established.

In his alert, the MRF Chairman recalls that nobody has the right to force, threaten or otherwise unlawfully prevent anybody from exercising their franchise, and that the violation of this prohibition constitutes a criminal offence and must be punished to the full extent of the law.

"The MRF leadership called on the competent Bulgarian authorities and institutions on the very same day and appealed on all parties to distance themselves from the actions of the so-called patriotic entities and condemn them as contrary to Bulgaria's Constitution and Bulgarian legislation," the press release reads.

On March 28, Lyutvi Mestan said that his DOST party had alerted the Prosecutor General, demanding an investigation of what happened at Bulgaria's border with Turkey where what he called "political arrogators" used violence to prevent the exercise of the constitutional right to vote. Mestan wants United Patriots co-leaders Valeri Simeonov and Krassimir Karakachanov to be stripped of their immunity.

Reporting the news about the probe on Thursday, the prosecuting magistracy said that Tsatsarov has received numerous alerts about the March 24 incident.