MRF Party to Petition European Parliament against Election Campaign Language Restriction in Bulgaria

Rousse, on the Danube, March 14 (BTA) - The Movement for Rights
and Freedoms (MRF) will petition the European Parliament against
 a ban in Bulgaria on the use of languages other than Bulgarian
in political election campaigning, MRF's Ilhan Kyuchyuk, a
member of the European Parliament, told the media on Saturday.
The petition will be submitted within a few weeks from now,
Kyuchyuk said.

MRF is writing the reasoning for the petition together with law
experts and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, he said, adding
that the issue is not unknown to the European Parliament.

The petition will be open to signature by any EU citizens.
Kyuchyuk noted that it is a citizens' initiative, and his
party's MEPs are only contributing to the reasoning.

As a result of the complaint, the head of the European
Parliament's Petitions Committee may recommend to the Bulgarian
government to revise what MRF sees as a discriminatory provision
 in the Election Code against the use of languages other than
Bulgarian in election campaigns, he said.

No such restriction exists in any other EU member state,
Kyuchyuk said. Even in Turkey, which is not an EU member, a
similar ban existed until five or six years ago but was
abolished upon a decision by the European Court of Human Rights,
 he recalled.