The political party "Green Movement" expressed its categorical support for the request for immediate early release of Desislava Ivancheva and called on the presidential institution to exercise its authority under the Constitution and sign an act of pardon. "We also support the protest organized by the BOETS association on June 25 in front of the Presidency, and we call on all democratically minded people to join", stated the "Green Movement" and added:
We remind you! Excuses with a negative opinion from the prison are legally invalid. A pardon in Bulgaria is an independent act of the Vice President. In the case of Ivancheva, the prison administration – the same one against whom she is suing for refusal of treatment and institutional harassment – cannot and should not be an arbitrator. Transferring responsibility is a political denial of humanity.
A revealing case of institutional persecution. Desislava Ivancheva – civil activist and independent mayor of the “Mladost“ district in the period 24.11.2016 – 17.04.2018, who in cooperation with her deputy mayor Bilyana Petrova fought against overdevelopment, protected green spaces and exposed schemes related to false restitution, illegal construction and misappropriation of municipal property – was ostentatiously arrested, humiliatingly held in public with handcuffs and convicted in a non-transparent trial in the closed Specialized Criminal Court. Her persecution bears all the hallmarks of political repression, resulting from her firm stance against corruption, misuse of municipal assets and construction expansion.
Inaction that kills. Ivancheva is serving an effective sentence in the Women's Prison – Sliven. The consideration of her request for clemency has been postponed for three years, despite the fact that:
she was diagnosed with a pituitary adenoma, the volume of which increased significantly in prison;
she suffers from asthma and is in a state of chronic stress and malnutrition;
she is a single mother, and her son – now 3 years and 7 months old – from an 11-month-old growing up without maternal care, raised by a sick 83-year-old grandmother;
there is evidence of institutional harassment towards her and during the serving of her sentence by the prison through deprivation of urgent medical care, unfair punishments by the prison administration, the totality of which is used for reports to court panels on her two consecutive applications for parole, suggesting a negative assessment, as well as a lack of response and protection to her signals of threats to her life made by other prisoners in the same prison.
Mass civil support, institutional neglect. Already in November 2022, over 250 citizens, unknown to Ivancheva and her co-trialist Bilyana Petrova, submitted individual applications for clemency, supported by a petition with over 3,500 signatures. Such a number of civil requests has no precedent in the history of the Pardon Commission. And yet - no response from the presidential institution - neither for Ivancheva nor for Petrova.
In December 2024, Ivancheva submitted a new request for pardon. And it remains unanswered. At the same time, the public register has documented cases of pardoned persons with convictions for drugs, road murders and attempted murder, including the so-called "Bulgarian Escobar", with a life sentence in Greece, extradited to Bulgaria, released by pardon after 2 months in prison in 2022 and arrested for drugs again in 2025.
Campaign against discrimination and for prison reform. Ivancheva and Petrova are leading a campaign to close the Women's Prison - Sliven and switch to mixed prison structures, as have already been introduced in Belgium, the Czech Republic and other countries. Bulgaria is the only country in the EU with a population of over 1 million that has only one women's prison - a fact that gives rise to systemic gender discrimination.
Our appeal:
· We insist on the immediate consideration and respect of Desislava Ivancheva's request for clemency;
· We insist on an end to the institutional inaction that threatens her life;
· We insist on justice and the protection of human rights;
· We call on our like-minded people and all free-thinking citizens to join the protest on June 25 in front of the Presidency.
Justice, not silence. Freedom for Desislava Ivancheva!