A week ago, a child was brutally beaten in Lukovit. They found him dumped by a river, with broken arms. Beaten in such an inhumane way that it is difficult to believe that someone who claims to be a “human” could show such deliberate cruelty. Because beating a child, breaking both of his arms and throwing him off a 6-meter bridge... is an attempted murder. When a child suffers in such a brutal way, it means that we have reached rock bottom as a society. A society with pseudo-morality, with pseudo-values, with pseudo-religion, with over-tolerance, with pseudo-justice. And all this against the backdrop of the hypocritical “debate” about The subject “Virtues and Religion“ at school… Teodora Krumova from the Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance “Amalipe” spoke to FACTS on the topic.
- Ms. Krumova, in Lukovit a man beat a child and threw him off a bridge onto the river bank, and in Haskovo a 17-year-old killed 18-year-old Magdalena. What is this, what is happening in our society?
- All this shows us several things. First, how sick our society is. And it is very sick. Second, our society screamed - “The Tsar is naked!“. Now it remains to be seen whether we will see the Tsar naked, or whether he will be seen with clothes.
- So it is time to take off the rose-colored glasses. Is that so…
- It's time to look around and see the reality around us as it is. The case in Lukovit exposed the worst ulcers of the social disease. The lack of social sensitivity and the double standard of society. Every miracle in 3 three days. We know this well. By April 30, everything was forgotten and the case became “cold news“. There were no mass protests, no roadblocks, no photos in the squares (not because someone was so anxious to protect the child's identity). And in the end, he - being a Roma child, probably deserved it… Not that each of us didn't pick up junk from other people's yards as a child, right? So - "there is no sinless gypsy", "every smoke has fire", "it's high time we implemented Krum's laws". These are just some of the comments I read on social media. I can't believe that there is anything, anything, that can justify such cruelty, especially when it comes to a child. I saw something else. That somehow the perpetrator is no longer one - there are hundreds. And all of them already with their justifications and comments - only they haven't physically done it yet, but in their minds and consciousness they have already beaten this child because he took junkies.
- Society, morals, attitudes, tolerance... We call this social relations. Parents, family, upbringing... What comes next?
- Broken institutions. Everyone is for themselves. A study by the Center “Amalipe“ on domestic violence in the Roma community from November 2020 showed extremely low trust of Roma women in institutions when it is necessary to seek protection and justice (b.a. - in fact, none of the women surveyed sought help from the institutions). 86% of Roma do not report cases of discrimination because they do not trust the institutions. Not that Bulgarian citizens in general trust the institutions and the police in particular (b.r. - according to the Anti-Corruption Fund, 69% of Bulgarian citizens believe that if they report corruption, they may suffer and do not feel protected). In this case, the native police did not fail to reinforce this impression – The rapist from Lukovit was detained for only 24 hours, then released, provided that he admitted his guilt for the extremely serious and cruel act.
- But the local community rose up…
- Yes, the case was also taken up by the media and only then was the perpetrator detained again, for 72 hours. But everything again fell into the category: “This is how things happen here“. If you heard about police resignations, there was not even an apology. What, did the child have to die - I recall, thrown from a bridge, for there to be a police reaction. We did not even hear that psychologists were sent to the school of the injured child, because I cannot imagine how the boy's classmates and friends feel.
- Society reacted…
- Yes, that's right. But we also saw the silence of politicians. Suddenly, everyone was engulfed in chronic institutional silence. Not a single official statement or public comment was made by national politicians or heads of institutions on the case of the beaten child. There was no official and final sanction for either the act or the discriminatory aggression and racism towards the victim in social media. The State Agency for Child Protection was also engulfed in deafening silence. The Commission for Protection against Discrimination also fell silent. And it's probably for the better, because there would probably have been some ignorant official who would blurt out: “But is that a child, or a gypsy?“
The media coverage and reactions were mainly at the local level, including from the mayor of Lukovit, Ivan Grancharov, who was the only one to condemn the attack and call for justice. Public attention and protests in the city tried to draw attention to the seriousness of the incident, but at the moment there is no information about official reactions at the national level. Otherwise, there are media outlets that are thirsty for sensation. And while some media outlets showed a real standard for covering cases of violence against children (including preserving the identity of the victim), a leading journalist allowed himself on national air, in a morning block, looking for a cheap yellow sensation, to "pour grist to the mill" of all those with the comments, shifting the focus to a conflict in the past that happened with the family of the injured child - as if this had any relation to the current serious criminal incident. And here an existential question arises: "Has our society changed in a century?" What happened to the child in Lukovit and especially the behavior of the perpetrator is very reminiscent of "Daughter-in-law" by Georgi Karaslavov. Yurtalana kills a child who has broken off a few ears of corn from his field. The perpetrator feels no guilt, because the child "steals corn", therefore he only has himself to blame. The police do not punish Yurtalana. The differences with the case in Lukovit are minimal, right? But we are talking about an event that took place a century later (b.a. – Georgi Karaslavov published – Snaha – in 1930). Is our society really not changing at all? Why is that?
And here I want to bring the topic back to the debate about values.
Because before we start violating the Constitution, taking away the secular character of the Bulgarian school, the debate about values must also include how institutions and adults share the values that we want to teach our children – kindness, tolerance, honesty, empathy, democracy, justice... I don't see them anywhere. Therefore, we - from the "Amalipe" Center, insist on the immediate, albeit belated, reaction of the institutions - Ministry of Interior, Prosecutor's Office, State Agency for Child Protection, Ministry of Education and Science and, respectively, the Commission for Protection from Discrimination, etc. Because there must be a categorical condemnation and condemnation not only of such acts, but also of any manifestations of racism, discrimination and tolerance of such acts using ethnic motives - both offline and online. We hope and want a full and impartial investigation of the case. Check for a possible ethnic motive and hate crime. Provision of medical, psychological and legal assistance for the child, his family and his classmates. Ensuring the safety of all vulnerable children in the community.
Because the case in Lukovit is not just about one child - it is a mirror of a society in which institutions are crumbling and values are eroding. This case is not isolated - it is also another painful reminder of the growing intolerance and violence that Roma children are subjected to in Bulgaria. Bulgaria has no children to kill!