site.btaGERB: "It Is Irresponsible to Turn Brutal Murder into Political Dividing Line"

Reacting to a brutal murder in Plovdiv August Turning a brutal murder into yet another political dividing line is irresponsible. Violence has no party affiliation. This was stated by GERB in a position published on its official Facebook page in response to remarks by Prime Minister Rumen Radev. The party called for any institutional failures, if there are such failures, to be identified.

On August 4, a group of teenagers self-described as "paedophile hunters" lured through social media 37-year-old Georgi Kuzev to a Plovdiv park, where they severely beat him up for more than an hour. They filmed the entire assault. The victim died at the hospital several hours later from the severe injuries he sustained. Three boys and two girls, aged between 14 and 17, have since been arrested and charged with murder, committed in complicity in a particularly cruel manner, motivated by hooliganism and sexual motives. It later transpired that one of the attackers was also involved in a brutal assault on two Nepalese men working in Bulgaria.

Prime Minister Rumen Radev said in remarks on the murder at the beginning of the government's weekly meeting that it was shocking that politicians and influencers were trying to gain political dividends from the killing of Georgi Kuzev in Plovdiv. He slammed the opposition for their stance on the case. "The same people who oppose the introduction of the Virtues and Religions subject in schools. The same people who systematically destroy monuments and erase the memory of anti-fascism are today shocked by the fascist symbols of the attackers in Plovdiv," Radev said. "These unenlightened perpetrators of violence are also your creations," he added, addressing the opposition.

GERB pointed out in their Facebook post: "Mr. Radev is no longer a political commentator - he is the prime minister. Society expects him not to point the finger at the opposition, but to guarantee law and order, security and functioning institutions." “If laws need to be changed, let us sit down and change them. GERB will support any reasonable measure that genuinely protects people and our children,” the party added.