site.btaMRF Chair Peevski Urges Foreign Ministry to Not Be Indifferent to Solingen Case

Movement for Rights and Freedoms Chair Delyan Peevski urged Saturday the Foreign Ministry not to be indifferent to the investigation of the fire in Solingen (western Germany), in which a Bulgarian family with two children died on 25 March. In a statement released by the party's press centre, he appealed to the Bulgarian authorities - the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Bulgarian Embassy in Germany "and all competent authorities to immediately step up their efforts in the case."

Peevski argued that local authorities have confirmed that it was a hate crime. However, on April 27, the Wuppertal public prosecutor said, quoted by Deutsche Welle, that investigators had found no indications of an anti-immigrant motive during preliminary investigations.

German prosecutors said that they had launched a homicide and attempted homicide investigation, after finding "unambiguous" evidence of arson following a fatal house fire in the German city of Solingen, the media outlet added.

The Bulgarian family was of Turkish origin. Their alleged murder rekindled the memories of the Solingen arson attack incident, which happened in 1993 in the same city. In May, 31 years ago, four young German men belonging to the far right skinhead scene, with neo-Nazi ties, set fire to the house of a large Turkish family. The 1993 attack led to violent protests by Turkish diaspora members in several German cities and to large demonstrations of other Germans expressing solidarity with the Turkish victims.