site.btaBulgaria Has Made Progress in Protecting Minorities, Council of Europe Finds

Brussels/Strasbourg, October 12 (BTA correspondent Nikolay
Jeliazkov)  - Bulgaria has made progress in the implementation
of the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection
 of National Minorities through advancing non-discrimination
legislation, promoting education for Roma children and
supporting religious rights, the Advisory Committee on the
Framework Convention said in a new opinion published on Monday.

The Council of Europe experts welcome the introduction of a more
 comprehensive legislative ban on incitement to discrimination,
violence or hatred on religious grounds. The National
Coordinator on combatting anti-Semitism has been active in
publicly denouncing manifestations of xenophobia. The funding
scheme for religious denominations has been reformed for the
benefit of the Muslim community. Thanks to the authorities'
"commendable efforts", attendance rates of Roma children at
schools have grown, and the number of early school leavers has
been gradually decreasing. The Advisory Committee praised the
steps to advance the work of Roma educational and health
mediators.

At the same time, the Committee notes that, apart from the right
 to learn one's mother tongue, there is no comprehensive legal
framework granting specific rights to persons belonging to
minorities in the fields of culture, media, language use in
contacts with the authorities, topographical signage or
political participation. Numerically large Roma and Turkish
minorities' representation in the national socio-cultural
landscape is not proportional to their demographic size. The
take-up of Turkish first language education has more than halved
 over the past five years; only very few children learn
Armenian, and no mother tongue teaching is provided for Greek,
Romani or Romanian.

The situation with the right of members of national minorities
to participate in public affairs has unfortunately deteriorated,
 according to the opinion. Organisations representing the
Turkish minority and many organisations working with and for
Roma have discontinued their work at the National Council for
Co-operation on Ethnic and Integration Issues, not considering
it as an effective tool. The efforts of the authorities to
promote tolerance are regularly undermined by xenophobic,
anti-Gypsy, Islamophobic and antisemitic statements by
high-level politicians, to which the authorities often fail to
respond. Cases of sanctions for hate crimes remain isolated, the
 Advisory Committee notes.

Roma continue to be affected by marked socio-economic inequality
 in education, housing and employment and are still exposed to
high levels of discrimination. Problems persist with Roma
children advancing to secondary education and with the quality
of education for Roma children. Despite the legislative ban on
compulsory segregation, de-facto segregation remains widespread,
 and the authorities' efforts in combating this situation are
insufficient, the opinion says.

The Committee recommends to the Bulgarian authorities to develop
 and implement a comprehensive new Strategy for Roma inclusion
for 2021 onwards; to continue prioritising access to education
for Roma children; to extend the education mediators programme
and combat segregation. Evictions of Roma from informal housing
should be carried out only as a last resort and in compliance
with the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality.
Authorities should ensure that ethnically motivated attacks and
discrimination are effectively investigated and those
responsible are brought to justice. The Committee also
recommends promoting minority language education by introducing
it at preschool and secondary levels.

The right to free self-identification of persons belonging to
national minorities should be strictly respected in the upcoming
 2021 population census. The authorities should, in co-operation
 with the representatives of national minorities, restore
recently abolished place names at least as co-official names
together with the new Bulgarian names. The authorities are also
encouraged to adopt a religiously sensitive approach to the
observance of dietary practices in educational institutions.
NV/LG