SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria's security council met in an emergency session Saturday to discuss rising ethnic tensions as nationalist groups staged anti-Roma rallies across the country.
President Georgi Parvanov said after the meeting that the exponents of ethnic and religious intolerance will face severe sanctions.
He also said the government will launch background checks on people with illegally acquired wealth, who live a flamboyant lifestyle and who do not pay taxes and cannot prove the origin of their income.
The decisions come in the wake of riots that erupted last weekend in the southern village of Katunitsa after a 19-year-old man was run over and killed by a minibus driven by a man linked to a local leader of the Roma, also known as Gypsies.
Villagers hurled stones and firebombs at the Roma leader's house, demanding he and his family be expelled. Tensions escalated when several hundred football fans from the nearby city of Plovdiv joined the riots.
Following the events in Katunitsa, Bulgaria was rocked by three nights of violent street protests which subsided after the Roma clan leader, Kiril Rashkov, known as "Tsar Kiro," was arrested.
On Saturday, nearly 3,000 mostly young people joined an anti-Roma rally in the capital, Sofia, demanding a strict rule of law be imposed and an end to impunity for leaders of organized crime groups.
Police dispatched hundreds of officers. No incidents were reported.
More protests were planned for Saturday through social networks, and football fans will stage a rally in the city of Plovdiv Sunday.
Human rights group Amnesty International urged Bulgarian authorities "to stop the escalation of violence, expressed in racially motivated attacks against the Roma community in the country."
In an effort to counter spreading anti-Roma sentiments, a group for interethnic tolerance on Saturday handed out carnations on the streets of several Bulgarian cities to mark the European Day of Roma Pride under the slogan "Let's Live and Study Together."
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