Clerics call for calm after Bulgarian unrest

Bulgaria's religious leaders are calling for calm after the country's worst civil unrest for more than a decade.

Hundreds of people took to the streets across the country's cities throwing bottles and stones at police after a dispute erupted between a Roma clan leader and Bulgarian villagers, in the worst outbreak of unrest for many years in the Balkan country.

Tension has built since residents of Katunitsa blamed Roma leader Kiril Rashkov for the death of a 19-year-old man and set on fire several of his houses and cars at the weekend.

Al Jazeera's Peter Sharp reports from Sophia, Bulgaria.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Al Jazeera
• aljazeera
• Peter Sharp
• Sophia
• Bulgaria
• Roma
• Kiril Rashkov
• Katunitsa

[playgrrrr]

Many Roma refuse to send their children to school, opting to send them to beg or steal instead and marrying them off to other Roma in arranged marriages at a young age. Those "gypsy bosses" get rich by being heads of the organizations managing where the children are sent to steal, EU wide. Education is free. To say that gypsies are being left behind/singled out by others is a lie. They segregate themselves. Only after that and their lawlessness are they being singled out.

[EllyMcCormack]

Spoke to a chap from that part of Bulgaria, apparently you have to be very careful of the gypsies there, or a wealthy chap who lives in a house like that will send people round to attack you. So yeah, the prejudice hasn't sprung out of thin air.

[delaviv]

Look the baron roma hous and around next door hous.the romi ar siknes have to find the cure

[DrStrangebomb1993]

If we East Europeans are so racist, why did French send back all their gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria? Even saintly Sweden sterilized them in the 1950s.

Just a question.

[Jindohin]

H 2 SO 4

[TheMrsStones]

We kan be in Europe, but our mentality is in balkan and to think like you we need min.50 years. I`m

[sockomatic]

I want these out of bg shte vi eba maikata pederasi da si utivate v turcia

[flioink]

I like how western media makes martyrs out of the gypsy , it is fun and all BUT completely false based on shallow one sided view of the issue.

Come on west Europe just take couple of hundred of these chaps in your civilized system I DARE YOU ! You don`t know what fun ride you are missing!

Gypsy people are our secret weapon against those who tolerate intolerance .

Only east europeans know how to manage them so unless you want your home robbed do not interfere or else.we`ll send them to you ;)

[istoledthisaccount]

FIRST OF ALL WHAT CLERICS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT, THE ONLY GYPSY RELIGION IS FUCKING AND MAKING KIDS.

SECOND OF ALL 80% OF CRIMES IN BULGARIA ARE FROM GYPSIES, AND BULGARIANS ARE SCARED IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY FROM THESE ANIMALS BECAUSE THE POLICE PROTECTS THEM,

AT THE PROTESTS THE POLICE PROTECTED THE GYPSIES BY NOT LETTING PPL GET TO THEM, WHERE WAS THE FUCKING POLICE WHEN ANGEL GOT RUN OVER BY A BUS OR WHEN GYPSIES RIOT AND KILL BULGARIANS,

KILL ALL THEM GYPSY SCUM THEY DONT DESERVE TO LIVE.

[666Shinedown]

Romes are polluting Bulgaria we don't want them they piss in sandboxes and stand infront of supermarkets and beg why don't they just go away1

[shynizzl]

Those dirty stupid gypsies are lying.They have much more rights than bulgarians.We gave them job,land,houses-they don't want to work,just to steal and kill old peple-fuck them-death!

[BulgarianInCanada]

italy gave them all employment and 90% went to beggining and stealing, watch the documentary. gypsies cause problems everywhere they go!