Yesterday, the Bulgarian District Court in the city of Blagoevgrad (original Macedonian name, Gorna Dzumaja) decided that an NGO whose name is “Citizens' Association for the Protection of Basic Individual Human Rights” is acting against the Bulgarian Constitution and banned it. The main reason is that the NGO's aims are to protect Macedonians’ rights, however, Bulgaria denies the very existence of such an ethnicity on its soil and elsewhere.

Claiming that Macedonians voluntarily chose to rename our country into “North Macedonia” and ethnicity into “North Macedonians” is like saying that Indigenous groups choose to be called “Redskins”. And when Western media attack Macedonians for denouncing the forced name change, it would be akin to them attacking Indigenous groups for denouncing anti-Indigenous terms. Welcome to The Surreal World: Macedonia.

Respect and recognition for the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria: strong condemnation of the announcements for a possible deregistration of a human rights organization.  The Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP) calls on the Bulgarian government as well as on local and regional authorities to ensure respect and recognition for the Macedonian minority in the country and to prevent any attempt of violation or unduly restriction of the freedom of association, such as the announced deregistration of a minority human rights organization.