The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
17 March 2006
BULGARIA: Religious freedom survey, March 2006
Four years after the controversial Bulgarian Religion Law and nearly two years after prosecutor's office and police officers forcibly expelled followers of the "Alternative" Orthodox Synod, Forum 18 News Service's survey analysis of religious freedom in Bulgaria shows that the situation remains troubled. The July 2004 Alternative Orthodox expulsions had no legal foundation and are being challenged through the European Court of Human Rights. The Alternative Orthodox - and other religious minorities including Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses – are concerned by religious freedom abuses such as the expulsions, which flow from the privileged position in law and practice of the Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate. Religious minorities also complain of restrictions on their activity in parts of Bulgaria. Amongst concerns Forum 18 has found is a widespread belief by local municipal officials that religious communities have to "register" with them to conduct religious activity.
9 July 2003
OSCE COMMITMENTS: OSCE MEETING ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION - A REGIONAL SURVEY
Before the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief on 17-18 July 2003, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org/ surveys some of the more serious abuses of religious freedom that persist in some countries of the 55-member OSCE. Despite their binding OSCE commitments to religious freedom, in some OSCE member states believers are still fined, imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their faith, religious services are broken up, places of worship confiscated and even destroyed, religious literature censored and religious communities denied registration.
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