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Bulgaria's "7 Dni Sport" daily stirred outrage with an openly racist title of the leading article in its Wednesday issue.
Bulgarian sports daily "7 Dni Sport" ("7 Days Sport") has stirred public outcry with a racist front-page headline.
The January 18 print edition of the newspaper featured a lead article titled "CSKA's New Players - Italian, Swede and Two Blackies".
The news spread like wildfire in social networks and triggered numerous signals to human rights organizations.
The Association of European Journalists in Bulgaria (AEJ) sent an open letter to Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev insisting that the Prosecutor's Office self-initiate proceedings over a crime under Article 162, paragraph 1 of the Penal Code involving race-based incitement to discrimination and hatred.
"We find that the title of the front-page article, which lists Simeon Kichukov and Boyan Petrov as authors, is not only offensive and contradicts journalism ethics, but also incites racial hatred and discrimination as described in the above-mentioned Penal Code provision," AEJ wrote.
The association insisted that the act constituted a community threat because it had been committed consciously and through a print media enjoying wide popularity.
AEJ called for holding liable the authors of the article, the duty editor, the editor-in-chief and all other higher-ranking people who had approved the publication of the title, including the publisher.
At the same time, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) sent a letter to the editorial board of the sports newspaper, asking them to change the wording of the title or face sanctions by the Commission for Protection Against Discrimination.
"This title is absurd and racist. The use of the word "blackie" is unacceptable for any media and runs against the principles of ethics and the Law on Protection against Discrimination. Encouraging intolerance and inciting racism among the readers is a scandalous and illegal practice," BHC said in its statement.
The human rights NGO demanded that the newspaper publish an apology note in the next print edition and that the names of the football players be listed by nationality, in this case citizens of Cameroon and Mali, in the online edition.
The editorial board of "7 Dni Sport" has not come up with an official stance on the matter.
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