site.bta Actors Protest Against Election of Slavi Binev for Parliamentary Culture Committee Chair

Actors Protest Against Election of  Slavi Binev for Parliamentary Culture Committee Chair

Sofia, December 3 (BTA) - Actors, musicians and cultural figures
 Wednesday protested in front of the National Assembly against
the election of Slavi Binev for Chairman of the parliamentary
Culture and Media Committee.

After Slavi Binev MP of the Patriotic Front was elected by
Parliament last Thursday to head the Culture and Media
Committee, many media and cultural organizations expressed their
 indignation at the choice.

Binev was elected to the European Parliament on the ticket of
the nationalist Ataka party in 2007 and was reelected in 2009.
In 2011, he left Ataka to establish his own party, GORD, which
was incorporated into the National Front for the Salvation of
Bulgaria in 2013. The latter party is now a member of the
Patriotic Front. Binev has come into the public eye primarily
for his alleged connections with strong-arm groups in the 1990s
and as the owner of discos and night clubs, including BIAD, a
venue in Sofia known as a centre of Bulgarian pop-folk music, an
 arguably vulgar music genre of little genuine worth.

The protesters filled up the space between Parliament's building
 and the Monument to the Tsar Liberator and blocked traffic on
the Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard. They sat on the stairs to the
building's central entrance for a short period of time.

Youth Theatre Director Vladimir Lyutskanov said that there are
worthier people who can head the Culture and Media Committee. In
 his words, there is no significant difference between the
appointment of Slavi Binev and last year's election of Delyan
Peevski as head of the State Agency  for National Security
(SANS). Lyutskanov was referring to Delyan Peevski MP of the
Movement for Rights and Freedoms, often cited as a monopolist of
 Bulgaria's media market, whose election as SANS chairman in
June 2013 sparked massive daily street protests demanding the
previous government's resignation.

Lyutskanov also said that Binev's election is a logical
conclusion of everything that the power holders are doing in the
 sphere of culture. He noted that the Youth Theatre had
elaborated a protest declaration which is read before every
performance.

Director Alexander Morfov said that he had tendered his
resignation from the National Theatre as a form of protest. He
explained that the artists had organized themselves
spontaneously on the social networks. In his words, there were
representatives of all theatres and media at the protest.
Commenting on Binev's invitation to the protesters, Morfov said
that he would not attend such a meeting.