Today the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, published a report on the visit to Bulgaria she carried out in November 2019. The report focuses on racism, intolerance and discrimination; violence against women and domestic violence; and media freedom.
The Commissioner considers that there is a need for a political and cultural shift in the way minority groups are treated and portrayed in Bulgaria, where hate speech, discrimination and hostility against Roma, LGBTI people and persons belonging to other minority groups remain an issue of acute concern. She calls on the authorities to react vigorously to incidents of hate speech, including by high-level politicians, enhance legal protection against discrimination and hate crimes, and effectively investigate and prosecute such crimes.
