VARNA, Bulgaria -- Teachers in Bulgaria say they are facing threats for signing a petition opposing recently passed legislation banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools and point the finger of blame at the far-right Revival party, initiator of the widely criticized controversial law.
The leader of Revival, Kostadin Kostadinov, said on August 22 that he would file a report with the Prosecutor’s Office about educators who have voiced opposition to the law.
The law, passed on August 7 in parliament with the backing of pro-European parties, sparked protests in Sofia and elsewhere in the largely conservative Balkan country of some 6.5 million people.
The amendment to the country's education code prohibits the "propaganda, promotion, or incitement" of LGBT "ideas and views" in schools, without specifying further details.
The pro-Western reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition is still hoping to gather support in the National Assembly, Bulgaria's unicameral parliament, to repeal the legislation.
People protest outside of the Bulgarian parliament building in Sofia on August 8.
Critics said the law is nearly identical to the Russian anti-LGBT propaganda law adopted in 2012 and the Hungarian anti-LGBT propaganda law adopted in 2021, both of which have been deemed by various international stakeholders and institutions as incompatible with international and European human rights standards.
Bulgaria is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not give equal civil rights to people of differing sexual orientations. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg obliged Bulgaria to create a legal framework to recognize same-sex relationships, an obligation with which Sofia has not yet complied.
The LGBT community and supporters in Bulgaria often face verbal as well as physical threats and attack, including the 2021 targeting of an LGBT center in Sofia.
Some 460 teachers and other specialists in the educational field signed a petition to demand the amended law to be scrapped. About 20 from the Black Sea resort of Varna said they were targeted by the local branch of the Revival party, including on Facebook.
SEE ALSO: In Bulgaria, A Gay Teacher Worries About An Anti-Gay LawMartin Stoyanov, a school psychologist in Varna, said a teacher in the Black Sea town had contacted him late one night recently on Viber, expressing fears over the recent threats.
"At some point we're becoming a country where it's dangerous to express your opinion," Stoyanov told RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service.
The Facebook post on August 21 on the account linked to the Varna branch of the Revival party included what it termed a "black list" of local educators who had signed the petition -- including Stoyanov -- against the newly amended law, referring to them as "parasites."
A day later, Kostadinov, long a controversial figure and spreader of pro-Kremlin disinformation, said he would hand over to the Prosecutor's Office the names of some 800 teachers he claimed were "criminals" who "want to push homosexual propaganda."
The threatened teachers in Varna have received much support.
The mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, voiced his support in a Facebook post on August 22, urging them to be brave and to personally contact him if they are threatened.
Pavel Popov, Varna’s deputy mayor who is also in charge of educational matters, told RFE/RL that Revival was calling for "repressive actions against Bulgarian teachers."
"Bulgarian teachers cannot be talked about in this way," said Stella Nikolova, a member of the National Assembly from Varna and a member of the PP-DB bloc in a Facebook post on August 22.
SEE ALSO: Bulgarian Protesters Decry Move To Ban 'Gay Propaganda' In Schools"We demand that all institutions take action to protect citizens' rights and to be held accountable for the fascist methods by which a political power operates," Nikolova wrote.
The Revival party did not respond to request by RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service for comment.
Several petitions have been launched condemning the vaguely worded changes to education code. One that garnered the signatures of nearly 460 teachers and educators was spearheaded by Boris Iliev, a teacher of Bulgarian literature and language at the National Science and Mathematics High School in Sofia.
"We have authentic arguments against the changes because our work depends on this law," Iliev told RFE/RL.
"When I saw the threats made against colleagues, I was extremely worried," Iliev added.
Denislava Nikolaeva said she was shocked when the name of her son’s teacher appeared on the Revival posting.
"We are collapsing as a society," Denislava told RFE/RL.