site.btaNationalists Prevent Sofia Pride Film Fest Screening, Interior Minister Orders Check

Bulgarian Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov will require full information about an incident at Sofia's Odeon Cinema so as to find out how the first-responder law enforcers handled the case, Stoyanov's Ministry said in a press release on Sunday.

Responding to an alert, uniformed police were sent to the cinema and found that the supporters of a political party and a group of citizens who attended a planned film screening exchanged verbal abuse, the press release specified. The screening organizer decided to cancel the event and returned the money to the ticket buyers. There was no physical violence between the two groups, the Ministry said.

LGBTI Action (which is among the organizers of Sofia Pride) wrote in an open letter on Saturday that "on June 10 an organized protest by extreme nationalists prevented a screening at the Odeon Cinema which was part of the annual Sofia Pride Film Fest."

The letter, signed by LGBTI Action Chair Denitsa Lyubenova, was addressed to Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova and copied to the Metropolitan Directorate of the Interior Director, Senior Commissioner Kaloyan Miltenov, and to National Assembly Chair Rosen Zhelyazkov.

The film to be screened was Close by Belgian director Lukas Dhont. It has been screened several times in Bulgaria without provoking similar reactions, the open letter points out.

It claims that "the gathered crowd, as well as the Interior Ministry officers' refusal to cooperate in ensuring the peaceful progress of the screening and the audience's access to it, forced the Sofia Pride organizers in the person of LGBTI Action to cancel the screening. In front of witnesses from the organization, the cinema manager was threatened by protesters that if he allowed the next screenings on the program further protests would follow," Lyubenova pointed out.

"It is inadmissible that in 2023 in Sofia, where Sofia Pride has been held since 2008, LGBTI people should be denied the exercise of their constitutional and fundamental human rights while the authorities fail to intervene," the letter says.

It calls on the Sofia Mayor and the Interior Ministry leadership to take all necessary measures within their competence to ensure the peaceful conduct and peaceful access to this and subsequent screenings within the film programme.

LGBTI Action also urged government institutions and political parties "to condemn the vilification of the LGBTI community and the perfidious actions that are used to thwart the exercise of their constitutional and human rights." It appealed on Parliament to urgently adopt amendments to the Penal Code criminalizing offences motivated by victims' sexual orientation.