BNT alerts European institutions, diplomats and NGOs about political pressure

The Director General of Bulgaria’s public service broadcaster BNT, Emil Koshlukov, sent a signal to international organizations and institutions after the accusations of caretaker Minister of Culture, Velislav Minekov, to the public media.

The letter described the minister's actions as political and governmental pressure, which had a "devastating effect" on freedom of expression, editorial independence of the media and violated European human rights standards.

The signal noted that in a series of public statements, including official correspondence with BNT and Council for electronic Media, Minister Minekov circulated numerous false allegations, demanded explanations for editorial policy, accused BNT of violating the law and demanded the resignation of the director general, including at a political rally, organized in front of the BNT building.

In the signal, the allegations of the caretaker minister that BNT interrupted its programme and thus violated the law in order to broadcast a press conference of GERB (party from the former ruling coalition), were defined as false and stated that: "Such a" sudden interruption of a programme "would be present if the broadcast of a film, sporting or cultural event was interrupted. Nothing like happened it in this case. And it is recalled that part of the press conference was broadcast in the current affairs programme, in which the topic of telephone tapping was discussed by representatives of other political forces. In compliance with the legal requirement for pluralism, the broadcast team considered that on the topic of telephone tapping, the point of view of the other party - GERB, which was not represented in the studio, can be reflected by including live coverage of parts of the press conference of GERB. It was also noted that the other two major TV channels, BTV and NOVA, which are owned by large foreign companies, acted in the same way as the public service media. It is also reminded that the decisions about the content of the programmes are exclusively within the professional independence of the editorial teams.

BNT expects the addressed institutions and organizations to take into account this unfavourable development in forming an assessment of the state of media freedom in Bulgaria and to assist in the protection of freedom of expression and editorial independence of public media in our country.

The signal was sent to the European Parliament and the European Commission, as well as to European human rights institutions and organizations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, as well as to the diplomatic missions of the EU and the USA in Sofia.