A file photo shows Bulgarian youths calling for the release of Spaska Mitrova during a rally in front of Macedonia's Embassy in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. Photo by BGNES
Spaska Mitrova, the Macedonian, who became a Bulgarian citizen at the beginning of 2009 and has since gone through a number of hardships, including jailing, has said she is afraid of going back to Macedonia.
“I am afraid of Macedonia. It is a police state. Everything can befall those, who are against the authorities or consider themselves Bulgarians. Look what has happened to me,” Mitrova told local 24 Hours daily shortly after she stepped on Bulgarian soil on Friday.
Mitrova was released Thursday from the jail in Skopje where she served over two months of her controversial three-month sentence.
Talking about her arrest and the time she spent at the police headquarters, Mitrova said she has been treated with brutality.
“The police surrounded my house and rushed inside as if I were some kind of a terrorist and not a helpless mother. They pushed me down the stairs and dragged me out by pulling my hair. The worst thing is that they took my daughter.”
Mitrova still does not know where her daughter is, nor why she has been arrested and sentenced to jail.
Mitrova became a Bulgarian citizen at the beginning of 2009, and according to many Bulgarian politicians and public figures such as MEP Evgeni Kirilov, it was exactly this fact that led to the excessive and unfounded punishment that she received, and to the brutality with which she was treated.
The young woman was jailed on July 30 allegedly for refusing to take her baby daughter to a social care home to see her father.