The action of the police and the National Security Agency against the radical organization "Blood and Honor" in Plovdiv once again put on the agenda the issue of the activities of neo-Nazi groups in Bulgaria, their influence and the extent of the threat they pose.
According to former Deputy Minister of Interior Filip Gunev, the organization has long been known to the security services and its activities have been the subject of surveillance over the years.
“Throughout all these years, they have been monitored in one form or another”, Gunev said on NOVA.
A similar position was also expressed by the researcher from the Center for the Study of Democracy Rositsa Dzhekova.
“This is indeed not a new organization and should not be news to the security services“, she pointed out.
After the action in Plovdiv, charges were brought against three people. Only the man, who was accused of being the leader of the local branch of the organization, remained in custody. According to investigators, the group has about 30 active members, and nearly 50 more people gravitate around it.
According to the investigation, the members of the organization have turned a former restaurant into a club, in which swastikas and other Nazi symbols were found. However, the defense disputes the charges and claims that there is a lack of sufficient evidence, as well as a properly formulated accusation of preaching hatred.
Gunev also drew attention to the activity of similar groups on the Internet, where communication often takes place in closed spaces.
“There are online forums and closed chat groups, and the question is how interpret their actions and when can it be said that these are not just gatherings, but forms of incitement“, he explained.
The former deputy interior minister described as exaggerated the claims that these are paramilitary formations that are preparing groups for a violent seizure of power.
“What else should they do besides read literature and wave flags? One option is to drink alcohol, the other option is to engage in physical activity“, Gunev commented.
According to him, one of the main questions facing institutions is where the line should be drawn between freedom of speech and the spread of radical ideologies.
Rositsa Dzekova pointed out that the risks associated with such organizations are not a new phenomenon. According to her, they were mapped in detail within the framework of a large-scale study back in 2015.
“There is a lot of data, that in 2013 an attempt was made to register a nationalist party by ten different organizations, among which was “Blood and Honor““,“, she recalled.
According to Dzekova, attention should not be focused solely on the specific organization, but on the broader picture and the warning signals accumulated over the years. She emphasized that hate crimes related to such ideology have been observed for more than a decade.
Therefore, according to her, the key issue is to make a realistic assessment of the scale of the threat and the risk that such radical groups pose to society.