Ognian Bojadjiev, a young journalist repsponsible for he site europe.bg was attacked yesterday night in central Sofia by unknown men.
It is less than a year since another journalist, Ognian Stefanov, was almost beaten to death with hammers, also in Sofia, by still unknown men. Some months before that, an author who wrote about the mafia was shot down 500 meters from where I work. This makes three brutal attacks against free speech in the short time span I have personally spent in Sofia. Absolutely scandalous. I have never read about similar cases, not in Sweden, not in Norway and not in Moldova. I guess the only equivalent is Russia, and cases like Politkovskaja and Natalya Estemirova.
I don't want to say that the press is more free in Moldova - it is not. The Bulgarian press can be vehemently anti-governmental, without any signs of fear. The threat in Bulgaria seems to come from another direction - organised crime.
It is probably much more difficult to curb organised crime than reforming an authoritarian state. But this case, as the many others, shows that the state must do this, in order to guarantee the free speech of its citizens.
Sources: Darik, novinite
It is less than a year since another journalist, Ognian Stefanov, was almost beaten to death with hammers, also in Sofia, by still unknown men. Some months before that, an author who wrote about the mafia was shot down 500 meters from where I work. This makes three brutal attacks against free speech in the short time span I have personally spent in Sofia. Absolutely scandalous. I have never read about similar cases, not in Sweden, not in Norway and not in Moldova. I guess the only equivalent is Russia, and cases like Politkovskaja and Natalya Estemirova.
I don't want to say that the press is more free in Moldova - it is not. The Bulgarian press can be vehemently anti-governmental, without any signs of fear. The threat in Bulgaria seems to come from another direction - organised crime.
It is probably much more difficult to curb organised crime than reforming an authoritarian state. But this case, as the many others, shows that the state must do this, in order to guarantee the free speech of its citizens.
Sources: Darik, novinite
No comments:
Post a Comment