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BULGARIA
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of
the press, and the Government generally respects this
right in practice. For most of the year, the legal
situation for the media (beyond the constitutional
provisions) remained unclear. However, with the
passage of the media law in November the situation in the
electronic media finally was regularized, after years of
uncertainty and administrative ad hoc measures. How
well the law functions was expected to become clear
during the course of 1999, when new licenses for
frequencies are issued. Considerable concern
remains among the media that the controlling boards
established under this law and the law on
telecommunications are not free of political control by
the parliamentary majority party. Despite previous
legal uncertainties, the broadcast media operated
reasonably freely. Nevertheless, there were
accusations of political censorship in February when an
episode of the satirical television program
“Hushove” (Bulgarian for exiles or outcasts)
was canceled immediately following a critical and
unflattering portrayal of the Government. Although
the reason given by the director of Bulgarian National
Television (BNT) for the show’s cancellation was an
alleged failure to comply with advertising rules, others
charged that the cancellation was a politically motivated
vendetta.
Among media
professionals and the broader public, the belief persists
that the Government exerts an unduly large influence on
the media though official channels, i.e., the Radio and
Television Council, and unofficially by influencing
advertisers not to use media outlets that are too
critical of government policy or officials. While
such claims are widely made and believed, little hard
evidence exists to document concrete examples of
government intimidation of editors or their broadcasters.
A variety of
newspapers are published freely by political parties and
other organizations representing the full spectrum of
political opinion; many reflect the views of their
ownership.
According to
the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Human Rights
Watch, at least 11 violent attacks were carried out
against media representatives, including physical
assaults and bombings of newspaper offices.
Attempts to intimidate journalists investigating
corruption were thought to be the motivation for the
attacks.
Libel is
punishable under the Criminal Code, and several human
rights organizations, as well as a majority of the
journalistic community, believe that prosecutors use
their authority to issue arrest warrants to intimidate
free expression in the press, particularly when such
expression is critical of the Prosecutor’s
Office. In recent years this law has been used
sparingly, but there have been two cases in the last 2
years in which reporters have been convicted of libel and
sentenced to prison terms or large fines. The
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s
Observation Committee announced in August that it would
review problems with media independence.
Pending
enactment of the new media legislation, national
television and radio broadcasting both remained under
parliamentary supervision. Some media observers
expressed concern that such parliamentary supervision
fosters censorship and a lack of balance in the
state-controlled media.
Only the two
state-owned national television channels, have nationwide
coverage. The Government announced plans to close
down one of the channels in the fall and to privatize
it. Although privatization has yet to occur, the
second channel implemented a gradual shutdown of its own
programming, reducing original news production to 5
minutes per day and broadcasting archived programs and
old movies the rest of the time. To date plans for
the national television station to broadcast in Turkish
have not been implemented. However, there is
limited radio broadcasting in Turkish on the national
radio’s local affiliates in regions where there is a
sizable Turkish-speaking population.
Television and
radio news programs on the state-owned media present
opposition views, but opposition members claim that their
activities and views are given less broadcast time and
exposure than those of the ruling party. There are
no formal restrictions on programming. Both
television and radio provide a variety of news and public
interest programming.
Human Rights
Watch reported that in March the national radio removed
journalist Diana Yakulova from the air for a month for
using anonymous information regarding the Minister of the
Interior. BNT dismissed Svetoslava Tadarakova in
March for “statements in the media [which] ruin the
good reputation of Bulgarian National Television.”
There are more
than 30 independent radio stations (all local or
regional). Most have licenses, but due to the fact
that the new media law had yet to be implemented fully,
these stations are technically illegal, since their
licenses expired and there was no valid mechanism for
renewal. Some private stations still complain that
the strength of their transmissions is restricted unduly,
with the result that they cannot compete fully with
national (state-owned) radio. All transmission
facilities are owned by the central Government.
Foreign
government radio programs such as the British
Broadcasting Corporation, Deutsche Welle, and the Voice
of America have good access to commercial radio
frequencies.
Private book
publishing remained unhindered by political
considerations.
The Government
respects academic freedom.
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