site.btaDRF Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan Addresses Youth MRF

Democracy, Rights and Freedoms (DRF) honorary chair Ahmed Dogan held a meeting with the Youth Movements for Rights and Freedoms (Youth MRF)  on Monday. In a video published on the party’s Facebook page, Dogan said that the youth are the real tool for overcoming the current political crisis. How exactly this will happen will become clear in the "coming days or weeks", he added.

Ahmed Dogan received representatives of the Youth MRF in a property in the capital's Boyana district. In the six-minute video, the honorary chairman addressed the youth and analysed the situation in the country. He told them that he sees this structure as the "new party", both in leadership and in personnel policy, public life, social networks and the media.

"We must create conditions for you, at least that's how I understand our role, as a veteran, so to speak. You must develop. Only then will I have the self-confidence to say that we have created conditions for your development. I don't see a more important role than that. You are the future, colleagues, you are our tomorrow," Dogan further pointed out.

He said that the DRF's serious mistake was its broken contact with the people. “The relationship is faltering, to put it most modestly,”  Dogan added and advised: "Learn to maintain this enormous strength - the living relationship with the voters, with knowledge of their problems, with setting models for solving their problems. In fact, this is how you will develop. If we lose this relationship, we become a corporate party."

On Saturday, activists from the youth wing of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) claimed they were forcibly removed by police from the residence of Ahmed Dogan, founder and former honorary chair of the party, in the Boyana district of Sofia. Valentin Tonchev, a former MP loyal to Dogan, told reporters that they had been invited by Dogan to the property to hold a National Council meeting of MRF’s youth wing. According to Tonchev, the house has long been the location where the MRF holds meetings and conducts all key activities, including nominations for mayors, members of parliament, and general party life. Later on Saturday, former transport minister Danail Papazov, representing Delta Epsilon Ltd., the property’s owner, said that Ahmed Dogan and a group of his political supporters allegedly forced their way into the property, bypassing the security of the premises.