News

Important victory of Roma and pro-Roma civil society in Bulgaria:

Deputy Prime Minister and ultra-nationalistic leader Valery Simeonov was removed as chair of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues. Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev will take over the ethnic portfolio and the National Council. This happened with Decision of the Council of Ministers from today,  October 25.

AMALIPE and many other organizations explicitly objected to the appointment of V. Simeonov as chairman of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues in May 2017 - information about it see here. Activists of Amalipe gathered more than 3200 signatures against the appointment as part of the joint effort of a broad group of Roma and pro-Roma organizations that resulted in a total of 15,000 signatures. In May 2018 the Amalipe Center and a number of other organizations agreed to participate in an event of the Bulgarian EU Council Presidency dedicated to the Roma only in the case of non-participation of V. Simeonov - more information see here.

In the last week Simeonov provoked huge public scandal when he called disabled children "pseudo ill" and their mothers - "shrieking mothers". This lead to big street protests