Comment by Alexander Detev:
We can't continue like this.
The person who should embody legality and justice in Bulgaria cannot have a five percent approval rating, as is the case with the Prosecutor General. Borislav Sarafov cannot remain holed up in his office, even though he has long been illegitimate - both in the legal and public sense. He cannot, the only time he leaves his office to provide information on the most brutal criminal case in years, address the citizens with the words: "Read between the lines". And the Minister of Internal Affairs should simply hide.
How can people believe that someone will reveal the truth?
The authorities cannot, with their behavior and similar statements, legitimize conspiracies, profanity, and the trampling of all kinds of rules.
The police and the services, who also "rejoice" in shocking public trust, instead of calming the population and inspiring authority, cannot provoke basic denial. How can people believe that they will reveal the truth when we know that the truth about the murders of Alexei Petrov and Martin Bozanov - the Notary, for example, will forever remain hidden? Or when the National Security Agency and the prosecutor's office jointly talk about signals of pedophilia, paramilitary organizations, seizure of state functions, etc., which, however, have been sunk in someone's lockers for years? Next to the data on every brutal case of corruption that has metastasized in society for decades. It is no wonder that while the police are the most approved institution in a number of Western countries, where over 90% of people declare that they trust the law enforcement agencies, in Bulgaria this percentage is half. Also, the country shares first place in corruption in the EU, as shown by the data of "Transparency International".
The media cannot have lost sight of ethical norms to such an extent that they let pseudo-experts work in the studios for days, who completely ignore the presumption of innocence and professionalism. The media, which for years has been calling every accused or detained "murderer" months before a verdict is pronounced, if it ever comes to one. Or who force the mother of a murdered person to show her personal data on national airwaves, as happened with Ralitsa Asenova, whose 22-year-old son Nikolay Zlatkov remained forever at the foot of Okolchitsa Peak.
It cannot be a public secret that informal structures are taking over state territory and seizing functions of official institutions, but no one reacts and does not protect citizens. Yesterday, the BOETS association showed a hut on which the Russian flag and the flag of the brutal butchers from "Wagner" are hung. What are they doing in Vitosha? How many more such places are there in Bulgaria that have become a state within a state? Will anyone provide answers?
Why can't we sleep peacefully
We can't sleep peacefully while the ideas of the Enlightenment, on which today's societies, including the Bulgarian one, are built, seem to be totally shaken. Jean-Jacques Rousseau speaks of the general will of the people - the foundation of the social contract that guarantees the legitimacy of laws and institutions. Institutions that exist to defend our rights and property, as John Locke wrote. But what kind of social contract can we talk about in a society that has clearly demonstrated in recent weeks that it does not want institutions to guarantee its security, simply because it does not trust them? What rule of law can we talk about when its embodiment - in the person of the Prosecutor General - has become its antithesis? What general will when there is no unanimity on basic values, principles and ethics? What separation of powers when the very institutions representing these powers are rejected by large groups of the population?
The "Petrokhan" case showed that we cannot continue like this. Because when the foundation is broken, everything built on it slowly but surely erodes. The problems are real and common, not supernatural. The supernatural is only in Lynch's genius and Sarafov's cynicism.