The European Commission is requiring an explanation from Bulgarian authorities about the measures taken regarding the death threats in certain media issued against the art critic Martina Baleva and the German professor Ulf Brunnbauer.

The two researchers spurred public outrage in Bulgaria by claiming one of the most horrendous acts in its history, the Batak Slaughter, was a myth and the number of victims overrated.

The news was reported by europe.bg, which cites a comment by Deutsche Welle, stating that "The EC position on the Batak case is that Bulgaria must adhere to its commitments and must not encourage nationalistically or religiously based hatred".

The spokesperson of the EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, Friso Roscam Abbing, has told the Deutsche Welle that, as Frattini had promised the German MEP Werner Langen, on March 12 he had sent a letter to the Bulgarian Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva.

The letter requests detailed information about the measures taken by the Bulgarian authorities on the alleged "xenophobic" acts in the Bulgarian media over the public reaction spurred by the theses put forth by the two researchers.

According to Friso Roscam Abbing, the EC is expecting Bulgaria's reply. He declared that the death threats, hatred, xenophobia were not part of the legal right to criticize, and were in complete contradiction to the basic human rights and freedoms.

Abbing also pointed out that Bulgaria had signed the "Television without Borders" Directive, which meant it had to crack down on the use of television for nationalistic messages.

The German scientists from the Eastern Europe Institute of the Berlin Free University sparked a wide controversy in Bulgaria in 2007 with their suggestions that the five-century long Ottoman reign over the country was a sham.

The two were planning a scientific conference in the town of Batak to present their theory but it failed over the widespread public opposition.

Nearly 5,000 people of the town of Batak including women and children were slaughtered, beheaded or burned alive by Ottoman irregulars who left piles of dead bodies around the town square and church in 1876, giving start of the April Uprising.

The Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria were described in detail by the American journalist Januarius McGahan, who wrote report for the leading UK newspapers at the time.

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