In an official statement Monday, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee reported of a hackers attack related to its campaign calling for the resignations of all members of the Supreme Judicial Council (VSS).

According to the non-governmental organization, the aim of the incursion had been to discredit the campaign and to cause the server to collapse.

Due to auto-generated e-mails, the website of the human rights group registered Sunday a total of 10 000 anti-VSS e-mails sent.

To guard against abuse, the website was closed Sunday at 19:00 p.m and was reopened Monday noon.

All fake emails have been deleted and the counter indicates that 355 people have asked VSS members to step down.

The online petition now enjoys enhanced protection, making automatically-generated messages impossible, the NGO has assured.

It also said that it supports the similar campaign initiated by www.bivol.bg which deploys short text messages urging the members VSS to leave office. The bivol.bg website does not provide options for counting the SMS messages sent.

The "Farewell, VSS" campaign, initiated by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, allows Bulgarian citizens to send an e-mail directly to the VSS members and to Justice Minister Margarita Popova with the following text: "Please, resign. You are violating my fundamental right to an independent court".

The campaign of www.bivol.bg , a project for investigative journalism, included the publication of the cell phone numbers of all VSS members, accompanied by an appeal to Bulgarians to ask VSS members to leave office via the following SMS: "Right Honorables, file your resignations! For the sake of the country!"