Bulgaria Among EU Leaders in Female Participation in the IT Sector
Bulgaria continues to hold a leading position in the European Union when it comes to the share of women working in the information technology sector
A Bulgarian court is to hold a new hearing Thursday in the trial against thirteen religious leaders accused of preaching radical Islam.
The 13 defendants face up to five years in prison in a criminal trial, which is viewed abroad as a test for the limits of religious freedom and tolerance in the country.
The Court in the southern city of Pazardzhik is to hear the expert report of Dr. Hassanov, who is to present a theology analysis of 9 documents translated from Turkish by another expert.
Bulgaria's Chief Mufti, Mustafa Hadzhi and his Deputy Vedat Ahmet have been summoned as witnesses.
At the last session, a translation of religious literature from Arabic to Bulgarian, done by expert Alexander Shurin, was presented before the magistrates. The documents have been found on the defendants' computers.
At the end of 2012, the defense council requested from Shurin to translate all texts instead of only those listed by the prosecution on grounds the latter could be considered intentional selection of evidence. This forced the translator to ask for two extensions of the deadline over the huge volume of literature.
Experts have commented it would be extremely difficult to establish the level of accuracy of the translation. In addition, at the last session, the defense lawyers said the designated experts were not competent enough.
Prosecutors say the Saudi-financed activities of the imams have been spreading religious extremism and that they have used a local soccer team to indoctrinate boys.
Prosecutors allege that three of the imams were undermining the state by encouraging people to boycott parliamentary elections and spreading religious hatred.
The other 10 are implicated in working with Al Waqfal Islami, a Saudi-financed charity that built mosques, sent boys on trips to the Middle East and financed religious education in Bulgaria that prosecutors say embraced the Salafist brand of fundamentalist Islam.
The Bulgarian government closed Al Waqfal Islami in 2003, but prosecutors say the 13 accused continued its work without a license.
A man from the town of Shivachevo has been taken into custody in connection with the brutal killing of a woman in Sliven
A 46-year-old man, identified by the initials G.I., has been charged by the Sliven District Prosecutor’s Office with the murder of his mother
Bulgarian pop-folk singer Debora Ivanova has been taken into custody and formally charged after being caught driving with a blood alcohol level
Border police in Ruse have detained 16 Iraqi nationals who were discovered hidden inside a refrigerated truck
Authorities have uncovered what is believed to be the largest illegal cigarette factory ever discovered in Bulgaria
In a major operation by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Directorate for Drug Control and Investigations, Bulgarian law enforcement seized two kilograms of fentanyl
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