The Movement for Rights and Freedoms needs to thoroughly clean itself from its murky past, including leader Ahmed Dogan, according to former vice-chair Kasim Dal, who was recently expelled from the party.

Speaking in an interview for Darik Radio Saturday, Dal, one of the founders of the movement, slammed the whole leadership of the party for clinging to Dogan, and exposed alleged ties of Movement officials to former communist State Security.

"It is time that a revolution breaks out in the MRF in order to remove people who are blocking the Movement's development! With this leadership there is no potential for electoral success or future government," said Dal who resigned as vice-chair of MRF in mid-January, after which he was formally expelled from the party.

Dal further commented that if the status quo is preserved, the Movement might fare badly in the upcoming municipal elections in the fall, even in regions in which it has traditionally been strong.

"I have checked Dogan's State Security file and as a MRF founder I was sorely disappointed," shared Dal, adding "It is now certain that out that our leader is a creature of the former communist secret services. People who have been fighting for rights and freedoms need to know this!"

Through the 1980s Bulgaria's communist leadership staged a shameful campaign of repression against the country's ethnic Turkish minority, known as the "Revival Process." It lead to the forceful renaming of close to a million Turkish-Bulgarians with Slavic names, and to the dislocation of some 350,000 of them to Turkey.

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms, one of the first opposition parties in Bulgaria, after the communist regime fell in 1989 was founded by ethnic Turkish people, among whom Dogan and Dal, in order to safeguard the human rights of citizens. Since then, its electorate has been overwhelmingly from among the country's ethnic Turkish minority.

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