Human Rights in 2022: In Bulgaria "instead of getting Worse, it is getting Hopeless"

"In 2022, freedom of expression in Bulgaria was subjected to new abuses in the conditions of a full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine. Under the false cover of freedom of speech, the propaganda theses of the aggressor were spread by persons in the highest state positions, representatives of public institutions and public media." This is one of the findings of the report "Human Rights in Bulgaria in 2022", prepared and published by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) and published today.

The decade of economic and political dependence on the media and replacement of the values of freedom of expression have turned Bulgarians into the easiest nation to manipulate in the European Union (EU), the report notes.

"Instead of getting worse, it's getting hopeless"

The expression "Instead of getting worse, it getting hopeless" was used by GERB MP Vezhdi Rashidov on the occasion of the unprecedented failure to elect the speaker of the 48th National Assembly, and in the BHC report it is used to describe the state of the media environment despite the good ranking of Bulgaria in the media freedom index of "Reporters without Borders" in 2022 compared to the previous ones.

Bulgaria continued to demonstrate its inability to guarantee its citizens access to verified, timely, evidence-based information. In the context of Putin's war against Ukraine, the media illiteracy that has developed in recent years has led to an explosion of propaganda speech. These problems were also highlighted in the international reports published during the year, monitoring freedom of expression and media freedom.

The conclusions are based on publications by Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, Reuters Institute, European...