Bulgaria

New York, June 1, 2010--Israel should immediately release the journalists it detained along with hundreds of peace activists on Monday after Israeli forces stormed a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. According to international news reports and CPJ interviews, Israeli forces arrested at least 20 journalists aboard the humanitarian flotilla; three have since been released.

New York, January 5, 2010—Bulgarian prosecutors must thoroughly investigate today’s murder in Sofia of Bobi Tsankov, author of a new book and a series of newspaper articles detailing the activities of reputed crime figures, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. 

At least two gunmen opened fire on Tsankov, 30, and two other men on busy Aleksandur Stamboliiski Boulevard in downtown Sofia at around 12:30 p.m. 

New York, September 23, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Monday's brutal attack on Ognian Stefanov, editor of the investigative news Web site Frognews, in Bulgaria. The editor and his family had recently received anonymous phone calls warning Stefanov to stop his journalism or face consequences, Stefanov's deputy, Aleksandar Ivanov, told CPJ. The site publishes investigations into the activities of public officials and particularly those in the state security services.

"The current situation has made it necessary for the First Main Directorate (PGU) of [Russia's] KGB to give the First Main Directorate of [Bulgaria's] Ministry of Internal Affairs the following special means: devices for silent, mechanical ejection of special needles, containing swift poisons. ..."

The above is an excerpt from Addendum 13 of the "Perspective plan for cooperation between the intelligence services of USSR and communist Bulgaria in the period 1972-1975"--a secret document made public thanks to Hristo Hristov, an investigative reporter with the Bulgarian independent daily Dnevnik who won a six-year-long legal battle for access to the secret archives of Bulgaria's National Investigative Service (NRS), the country's security agency. Last week, Hristov published his book The Double Life of Agent Piccadilly, based on more than 90 volumes of previously undisclosed NRS documents that shed light on the 1978 murder in London of Bulgarian dissident journalist Georgi Markov. 

New York, April 8, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns yesterday’s murder of popular writer Georgi Stoev, author of a series of books on the origins and rise of Bulgaria’s criminal underworld since the fall of communism in 1989.

Stoev, 35, was on a busy street when two unidentified men stopped him near the Pliska hotel in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, the independent news Web site Mediapool reported. Both men fired at Stoev at a close range; one bullet hit him in the head, Mediapool said. The two fled. Stoev was taken to Pirogov emergency hospital in critical condition and underwent brain surgery, but died of his wound Monday evening.

Dear Secretary Rice: In advance of your meeting in New York with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov during the 62nd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Committee to Protect Journalists draws your attention to the unexplained death of an independent journalist in Turkmenistan.