Anti-Muslim discrimination continues to grow in Bulgaria, with no legislative reforms or judicial actions taken in the past year to secure Muslim rights.
Bulgarian Muslims are concerned by the rising trend of discrimination against Muslim communities, with very few legislative actions proposed to stem the problem.
Moreover, analysts point out that some Muslim victims have been taken to court and sued for hooliganism.
Experts say Bulgarian Muslims continue to be deprived of access to proper education, healthcare, jobs or political representation.
Last month, Amnesty International had issued a report calling on European governments to do more to clear prejudices against Islam.
On May, 2011, members of the far-right Bulgarian Ataka party attacked several Muslims who gathered for their usual Friday prayers at a main mosque in downtown Sofia.
The Bulgarian government has forbidden passport pictures with women's headscarves and banned religious literature from focusing on Islam in a move that has been widely viewed as part of a smear campaign against Muslims in the country.
There are about one million Muslims living in Bulgaria - approximately one-tenth of the total population -- in centuries-old local Muslim communities, not new-comers like in Western Europe, which is seen by many as a “role-model for tolerance”.
source : http://abna.ir
