Forty-two leaders of minority organizations led by the Chair of the "Prav Put" ("Straight Way") Foundation Ashim Asan boycotted Tuesday a meeting on social issues organized by the Plovdiv Municipality.

Instead of meeting the Plodviv Mayor and City Councilors, the ethnic minority leaders protested before the building of the city hall because of the intention of the Municipal Administration to ban the loud Roma weddings taking place in certain quarters of the city.

Dozens of Plovdiv residents, mostly of Bulgarian origin, have showered the Mayor and the City Council with petitions against the noisy Roma weddings, which are held in restaurants, or directly in the streets, and last for three days.

Many have threatened to block key roads, and to seek other more effective forms of protest unless the administration took measures.

Tuesday's meeting, which was boycotted by the minority leaders, was supposed to help resolve important issues including the problem with the electricity bills in the Roma-populated districts, which had not been paid for years.

The administrative also wanted to set on discussion its Strategy for the Integration of Minorities until 2011.

While defending the Roma weddings outside the city hall, Ashim Asan said the few minority leaders, which attended the meeting had been bribed by the municipal administration.

He threatened that if the present administration continued with its current policies, the next mayor of Plovdiv would be from the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which also claims to represent other minorities such as the Roma.

The Deputy Mayor of Plovdiv Krasimir Angelov said the minority leaders were boycotting their own families because they should have taken part in discussing the important issues.

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