site.btaGroup of Bulgarians, Including VMRO Co-leader Sidi, Not Allowed into Serbia

A group of Bulgarians were not allowed into Serbia , VMRO party co-leader Alexander Sidi told BTA on Wednesday evening. Sidi together with VRMRO leadership member Maria Tsvetkova, writer and former consul of Bulgarian in Nis Edvin Sugarev, and Western Outlands Civil Committee Co-chair Valentin Yanev were denied entry at the Ribartsi border control checkpoint.

In Sidi's words, they were held at the border for two hours and then, without any explanation, were presented with a document reading they were banned from entering Serbia, and were sent back. Their car was searched but nothing suspicious was found, Sidi added.

"We did not sign the document they handed us, because it was written in Serbian and English. We did not want to sign it in the absence of a lawyer and a translator," Sidi said.

The group were headed to Bosilegrad for Sugarev's book presentation. The presentation of "Elegy for the Kraishte. The Fate of Bulgarians in the Western Balkans" was planned as part of a commemorative evening for the Day of the Western Outlands, November 8. Due to the group being prevented from entering Serbia, the event did not take place.

Earlier on Wednesday, six civilian police officers and inspectors from Surdulica Municipality conducted a search of the Bosilegrad Culture and Information Centre. The search, ordered by the Supreme Court in Vranje within preliminary proceedings for instigating national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance, resulted in the confiscation of 23 books by Sugarev.

In early August, BTA stringer Aleksandar Dimitrov was stopped from entering Serbia from Bulgaria on the grounds that he was carrying three books in Bulgarian, all copies of Sugarev's "Elegy for the Kraishte". At the instructions of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, Bulgarian Ambassador to Serbia Petko Doykov handed a note verbale to the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting clarifications on the matter from the official Serbian institutions.