site.btaMovement for Rights and Freedoms Leader Karadayi Dismisses Allegations that His Party Is Against Turkey as "Huge Lie"

Movement for Rights and Freedoms Leader Karadayi Dismisses Allegations that His Party Is Against Turkey as "Huge Lie"

Sofia, May 6 (BTA) - "Allegations that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) is against Turkey are a huge lie," MRF Chairman Mustafa Karadayi said on Sunday, quoted by his party in a press release. Addressing a rally in the Village of Karamantsi near Haskovo (South Central Bulgaria), he assured his audience that his party does not oppose any neighbouring country and, moreover, has always favoured a strong secular democratic republic, founded by Kemal Ataturk, with regard to Bulgaria's southeastern neighbour.

Karadayi said further on that the MRF will strongly resist any attempt at disuniting the political force, and anybody who dares do that will be regarded as an enemy.

"The Movement for Rights and Freedoms is an alternative to would-be disuniters. The alternative is tolerance and peace, unity and togetherness, stability and security," he argued in a speech at another rally, in the Village of Krepcha near Turgovishte (Northeastern Bulgaria), earlier in the day. "Our cause, our creed is tolerance and peace, stability and security in the country, understanding with our neighbours, stability and peace in the region," the MRF leader said.

"Learning from our history, we must say today that we need even greater unity, even greater togetherness because both GERB and the fascists and all those who are now [in the government] pose huge problems to our State," Karadayi pointed out.

"Nationalists are off limits in Europe. But when they are not off limits in Europe, they [the EU] turn a blind eye," the MRF leader argued in Karamantsi. He said that the EU has no future if there would be double standards and two speeds.

The rallies marked the anniversary of peaceful protests in 1984 against an internationally condemned campaign to assimilate Bulgarian Muslims, launched by the Communist regime in the mid-1980s. National Assembly Deputy Chair Nigyar Dzhafer, MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk, MRF MPs Taner Ali and Imren Mehmedova, MRF Turgovishte Chapter Chairman Hamdi Ilyazov, mayors and municipal councillors of the region attended the event in Krepcha.