For several days media attention in Bulgaria has been focused on the French citizen of Iranian origin Ezidis Elham and Romanian citizen Mimo Popescu who are wanted by the police. The lack of timely information by Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry has triggered various apocalyptic scenarios related to alleged terrorists from Islamic state. The official press release of the Interior Ministry has made it clear that media publications are an interpretation of actions undertaken by the National Police General Directorate related to the security of the popular music festival Spirit of Burgas held last weekend in Burgas, as well as activities in combating illegal migration and distribution of invalid IDs. There is also information that the French and Romanian identity cards published in some media are invalid.

"We accept that the official line is correct, because hardly anyone would risk submitting false information or concealing information and then have an incident occur”, comments the analyst from the Center for the Study of Democracy Tihomir Bezlov. “The consequences are too severe. I think that we are actually talking about a criminal line associated with document forgery. There may be also mixed information - for example, the wanted persons might be related to the issuance of documents of people associated with the Islamic state, regardless of whether they are entering or leaving the Islamic State. We have to accept this official information as normal, if we want to have simple trust in institutions."

With regard to the increased security of the Spirit of Burgas music festival, the explanation of Tihomir Bezlov is that it was not a matter of a specific terrorist threat, but of normal security measures. On the one hand, there is an accumulation of many people at one place, on the other hand – the 2012 bomb attack at Sarafovo airport near Burgas, about which it was also never made clear whether the terrorists had a Bulgarian network which they used. After the bombing at Burgas Airport, is there a danger in Bulgaria of potential terrorists?

"We accept that it is logical to have similar individuals posing high risk”, continues Tihomir Bezlov. “Since 2013, the number of officially registered people who have entered Bulgaria as emigrants is about 30 thousand. Furthermore, we have seen the opposite trend of European citizens traveling to the Islamic State in order to fight for it. There are persons detained at the request of Western European special police services, which are returned to their respective countries. There are also such who have been detained at the green border, regarding whom a signal has been sent by the Turkish side. Clearly, in both directions citizens pass through Bulgaria to Islamic state and Bulgaria is respectively trying to control this process. Our country has another big problem. It is one of the European countries in which serious terrorist incidents have taken place. Bulgaria of 2012 after the bombing at Burgas airport is a much riskier country than we thought it was."

"Though Bulgarian society does not accept any form of extremist ideologies and firmly opposes all forms of terrorism, the likelihood that individual members of society or foreign citizens residing in the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria might become involved in the preparation and implementation of terrorist activities cannot be excluded “, this is indicated in the draft strategy to counter radicalization and terrorism put to public consultation. Tihomir Bezlov explains that it is necessary above all to make clear that radicalization is a much broader topic than terrorism.

"This strategy is trying to create a broader framework, which is associated with different risks of radicalization and to establish mechanisms against it. Unlike the narrow concept of terrorism, against which the special services and law enforcement organizations are fighting, here are the stakes also on educational institutions to identify the risks and thus to create conditions for Bulgarian citizens not to go to extreme behavior. "

Tihomir Bezlov adds that the radicalization and terrorism are interlinked and equally important topics for society but regretted that very few attempts have been made to be arranged: "Any strategy is a meeting of institutions and a bit of useless talking, but we should start somewhere”.

English Rossitsa Petcova