Some 60 people stated a protest rally in front of Sofia Court House in the capital city Sofia against returning the mosque in the city of Kyustendil and other properties to the Grand Mufti’s Office, FOCUS News Agency reported. Football fans, Mayor of Kyustendil, Petar Paunov, angry citizens, and others took part in the demonstration. They carried posters reading “Let us save Bulgarian cultural monuments” and “Europe with museums, not mosques, no to Islamisation”.
The Appellate Court in Sofia is sitting on a case in which the Muslim denomination requests to be accepted as a successor to the Muslim religious municipalities from the beginning of the 20th century.
“We are here with our silent presence to clearly show will not let things develop the way the Muslim denomination wants,” said Petar Paunov, speaking on the occasion of the staged protest. “We have again gathered to call [on them] to cease the provocations to these ethnically tolerant regions, where everything is calm and these are the symbols of tolerance – the places where Bulgarian Jews were saved, such as Kyustendil, Karlovo and all the symbols of ethnic tolerance in Bulgaria, to cease the attempts at generating ethnic contraposition,” he added.