Pegida ex-Official, Dutch Branch Leader Boast Migrant Hunt in Bulgaria

Society | July 6, 2016, Wednesday // 15:19
Bulgaria: Pegida ex-Official, Dutch Branch Leader Boast Migrant Hunt in Bulgaria Source: Facebook

Expelled Pegida frontwoman Tatjana Festerling was in Bulgaria to hunt down migrants seeking to cross from Turkey together with the head of the movement's Dutch offshoot, Edwin Wagenveld, her own posts show.

On Facebook, Festerling published showing her with a group of vigilante migrant hunters in Bulgaria.

She wrote about her stay with the Bulgarian Military Veterans Union "Vasil Levski", a nationalist group patrolling along the border.

Vigilantes made headlines in Bulgaria and elsewhere in Europe with the so-called "citizen's arrests" of migrants crossing from Greece.

Festerling and Wagensveld are seen wearing military-style uniforms, alongside men who are supposedly members of the union.

She also writes they didn't spot a migrant while patrolling during her visit to Malko Tarnovo, a Bulgarian town next to the border with Turkey, earlier in July.

However, she cites their estimates according to which as many as 1000 people cross into Bulgaria illegally on a daily basis.

Finding rubbish left on the border, she presents it as evidence there were migrants nearby.

In her posts, Festerling purports she acted as a "voluntary, unarmed... helper and supporter of the Bulgarian border police" who had arrived to the country "absolutely legally".

She also calls on the "Men of Europe, possibly veterans from the military and police," to set off for Bulgaria as soon as possible to do the same to stop the "theft and rape campaign in the name of Islam".

Festerling, a former journalist and one-time member of Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD), was expelled as deputy head of Pegida in June.

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Tags: Pegida, vigilantes, migrant hunters, migrants, Bulgaria, Malko Tarnovo

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