THE Muslim community in Bulgaria remained divided after the election of a new chief mufti, Mustafa Alish Hadzhi, at a national conference on March 20 in Sofia.
Hadzhi was elected almost unanimously by the 1404 delegates from across the country, after four other candidates were not present in the hall and three others asked to be struck off the list in favour of Mustafa Hadzhi.
In spite of calls for unification on the part of the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament, MPs from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the head of the religious faiths directorate of the Government, Ivan Zhelev, several of the candidate muftis and their supporters, as well as the delegates from Kurdjali, Smolyan, Sofia, Velingrad, Pleven and Shoumen staged a walkout from the hall and gave a news conference in front of the National Palace of Culture (NDK). They accused the MRF of meddling in the religious affairs of the Muslim community in Bulgaria.
One of the candidates, Sofia regional mufti Ali Hairadin, who was one of the chief mufti candidates, told reporters that "friends from the MRF" had told him on the previous day that Mustafa Hadzhi would be elected chief mufti.
"This conference is illegitimate," former chief mufti Nedim Gendjev said.
At his first news conference as chief mufti, Mustafa Hadzhi said that the Muslims were no longer divided, but had succeeded in finding a way to unite and overcome their problems.
Mustafa Hadzhi was chief mufti in 1997 to 2000. From 2000 to 2003 he was chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council and is now rector of the Higher Institute of Islamic Studies in Sofia.
He was born on March 31, 1962, in the village of Draganovo, Velingrad municipality. In 1997 he graduated in theology of Islamic law in Jordan. He is now studying for a doctor's degree in Islamic sociology in Turkey. He speaks Arabic, English, Russian, Bulgarian and Turkish.
Meanwhile, in its regular report on human rights in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) said that in 2004 there were serious violations of the right to freedom of religion
On July 21, 2004, police carried out a massive raid against the so-called Alternative Synod of Metropolitan Inokentii in an attempt to forcefully unite the divided Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
"This event can be described as the gravest human rights violation of the year and, indeed, as the gravest violation of religious rights since 1989," the BHC report said.
According to the report, overall in 2004, there was no significant progress in the human rights situation in the country.