For the second consecutive year, no one was convicted of antisemitic crimes in Bulgaria in 2019, though the year saw nine official complaints, according to a report released on September 10 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
The FRA report, an overview of antisemitic incidents in the European Union from 2009 to 2019, said that in 2019, Bulgaria’s National Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism, Deputy Minister Georg Georgiev, and the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria “Shalom”, the country’s EJC affiliate, informed the Interior Ministry of nine antisemitic incidents, six of which were reported to the relevant prosecutor’s office.
In one case the prosecution filed charges under Article 162(1) of the Criminal Code concerning hate crime on the basis of ethnicity, the report said.
Citing figures from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Justice, the FRA report said that there had been seven convictions for antisemitic crimes in the country from 2009 to 2019.
