Several hundred police officers and their relatives gathered on Sofia’s Sveta Nedelya square on September 27 2009 to demand tougher punishment for people who attack police and for police officers who abuse their power.
 
The gathering was promoted by several recent cases of attacks against police officers and the penalties handed down by courts, which police believe were too lenient.

The most recent case was a broad-daylight assault by two people, both with criminal records, on senior police officer Dimitar Dimitrov while he was at a coffee shop in the town of Pernik.

After the attack on Dimitrov, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, a former chief secretary of he Interior Ministry, promised legislative changes to introduce severer punishments for people who attack police officers and heavier sanctions for police who abuse their power.
 
Borissov said that he saw no reason for the September 27 gathering because the planned changes to the law were already on the way. Police at the gathering wanted these changes to become reality within the next six months.

The gathering of police officers off-duty is the first since Borissov's Government took office in July this year.
 
Over the past year, police officers held several gatherings outside the building of Interior Ministry to protest against their low salaries and poor working conditions.
 
By law, police officers on duty cannot organise any form of public protest, which was why the protests were dubbed "gatherings".
 
The first took place on December 13 2008 in all major cities in Bulgaria, when thousands of police officers gathered to share a smoke.
 
On December 21 2008, hundreds of police officers gathered for a second straight weekend to drink mineral water.