site.btaCommittee for Protection against Discrimination Finds Hate Speech against Jews in Facebook Posts by Vazrazhdane Leader and Comments by Followers

The Commission for the Protection against Discrimination (CPD) has established that the leader of the nationalist party Vazrazhdane, Kostadin Kostadinov, and his followers on Facebook used hate speech against Jews in Facebook posts and comments, said the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee Tuesday. The CPD ordered that the posts and comments be removed.

The case was referred to the CPD by Daniel Lorer, who was represented by lawyer Diana Dragieva and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. 

In a series of posts in 2022 and 2023, Kostadinov attacked Lorer, who was a political opponent in his capacity as ranking member of the Continue the Change party, calling him "reptile", "foreigner", "foreign agent", "anti-man", "object", "disgusting creature", "one who calls Bulgarians 'a tribe'". Kostadinov's words prompted extreme comments by his followers, as well as threats, calls to violence against Lorer and for "sending him to Buchenwald" - and even regrets that "Hitler did not live longer". 

Kostadinov's defence cited his freedom of speech as a politician with regard to a political opponent. Kostadinov continued to use this language and insisted that it was justified.

According to the CPD, however, Kostadinov's words were used with reference to Lorer's Jewish roots. At the same time, no political message can be found in the Facebook posts and comments.

The discrimination watchdog further points to the significance of the fact that Kostadinov's posts were public and Kostadinov has many followers. The comments to the posts illustrate perfectly the impact of the language Kostadinov uses on his followers. For that reason, the CPD finds that not only the posts are problematic but also the conditions that Kostadinov creates in the social media for exchange of discriminatory comments. It believes that the Vazrazhdane leader intentionally allowed insulting comments and threats against Lorer and even responded to some of them, showing that he was aware of the nature of the comments but took no action to remove those that threatened and humiliated Lorer, thus creating conditions to encourage and amplify hate speech.

The CPD decision was made unanimously by an extended five-member panel of the CPD and is not final.