The dossiers of the former State Security (SS), the communist political police service, are on the agenda for Bulgaria. This started two weeks ago when freelance journalist Angelina Petrova exercised her legal rights and requested from Interior Minister Roumen Petkov the opening of her own and those of the top 10 Bulgarian journalists dossiers.
On May 21 Petkov send a letter to Petrova with the requested information, which she did not make public. However, she did make known that the letter allegedly said that some of the journalists from her list had probably been State Security collaborators in the years before 1989.
The letter found its way to the press and inevitably provoked severe reactions towards Petkovs decision to selectively reveal information from the dossiers of the journalists. It again brought to life the debate as to whether the dossiers of the former SS should be fully opened, or closed for ever.
The most high-ranking criticism of Petkovs actions came from President Georgi Purvanov who, speaking in Varna on May 21, called Petkovs decision wrong. At the moment Bulgaria should focus on fighting organised crime instead of on dealing with past issues, he said.
Such acts need to be based on laws, rather than on the personal decisions of one minister, Purvanov said. The political elite had missed an opportunity to properly close the matter by not revealing at the time (of the fall of communism) the names of secret police collaborators or by thanking intelligence officers who worked for Bulgaria, Purvanov said.
Next was Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, who supported Purvanovs position on the subject. Stanishev said that declassification was not needed at the moment.
A number of dossiers have already been destroyed and some of them could be fake, Stanishev said in an interview the same day with private channel Nova TV.
The documents that have been declassified contained information about events that occurred over 30 years ago and in which nobody was interested any longer, Stanishev said. In Spain and Greece dossiers from past regimes had been destroyed, he said, stating that he would like to get expert advice on the prospects of destroying former state security files.
On May 22, Petkov received more criticism from his fellow Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) colleagues. Georgi Yurukov, BSP deputy floor leader and member of the committee on domestic security and public order, said in an interview with Bulgarian-language daily Sega that Petkov had been wrong to open the dossiers. European regulations on the protection of personal data, on access to public information and on classified information clearly regulated such activities, Yurukov said.
Petkov was probably misled in making this decision, he said.
Petkov reacted by issuing a media statement on May 22. He said that he supported Purvanovs position against the selective opening of the dossiers. Petkov was quoted by the Bulgarian-language press apologising for involving the names of the journalists.
On May 23, Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev, speaking on private channel bTV, said that he favoured the complete disclosure of the dossiers.
It annoys me that for 15 years so many things in this country have been explained by links to the former State Security. It is high time we learn whether this is true, he said.
Velchev insisted on complete declassification of all records that the communist political police kept on its agents, but he said that the matter required a political decision.
Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov, a former chief secretary of the Interior Ministry, expressed a similar opinion, demanding publication of the dossiers on the internet.
Complete declassification of communist police records was called for by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which belongs to the ruling coalition, and by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria.
Nikolai Svinarov, former defence minister and current chairperson of the parliamentary committee on domestic security and public order, said in a May 24 interview with Nova TV that there should be a serious approach towards the former State Security as part of the totalitarian state. Svinarov said that Petkovs decision was not correct because it did not concern details and because partial excuses made by Petkov were not enough. According to Svinarov, the responsible approach would be that investigations be performed by defined pre-court investigators instead of all investigating officials.
