Bulgaria’s Muslim community on Tuesday protested against accusations that 13 of its prominent members, including clerics and teachers, were propagating radical Islamist ideas, AFP reported.
“We are extremely vexed by the prosecution’s allegations (...) that create tension within the Muslim community and the Bulgarian society,” the chief secretary of Bulgaria’s grand mufti Husein Hafazov said.
Twelve men and one woman from Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish minority faced charges on Monday for allegedly preaching the Salafite ideology of militant extremist Sunnis in the southern regions of Smolyan, Blagoevgrad and Pazardzhik.
The group - including imams, a former chief mufti, lecturers and teachers - was suspected of setting up in Bulgaria a branch of the radical Saudi-based Al Waqf-Al Islami foundation.
According to Hafazov, the accused were “very actively abiding by the instructions of the chief mufti to preach the values of Islam while conforming to the country’s laws”.
“By preaching Islam, they guarantee the non-propagation of radical ideas,” he added.
The grand mufti’s office released on Tuesday a declaration adopted in February by the Supreme Muslim Council, Bulgaria’s top muslim community body, that warned against “rising Islamophobia” both globally and in Bulgaria.