Panic in Bulgaria

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Schools in Roma districts of Bulgaria emptied in minutes in a mass panic recently. Parents dragged their children out of class, fearing that if they stayed, they would be abducted by social workers, and possibly sent for adoption abroad. Meanwhile many other parents are protesting against a draft law they say puts 70% of children at similar risk. Are they right to be scared? Or have rumours and fake news spread hysteria about the power of the state? Suddenly, campaigns to defend the “traditional family” are gathering strength in Bulgaria – and across eastern Europe. What’s behind them? And why do they treat one Western country – Norway – as the ultimate source of evil? Tim Whewell investigates.

(Image: Protestors in Sofia, Bulgaria, demand the return of Katerina, a Bulgarian baby taken into care by social services in Germany. Credit: BBC/Tim Whewell)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I just want to take you back to the events of the day of the panic.
0:11.0	A very difficult day for you I appreciate. This is assignment on the
0:16.2	BBC World Service. I'm Tim Hewell talking to meet Komitev head of school
0:21.4	number six in Slovenleeven, Bulgaria.
0:23.8	Can you tell me before it started, what was happening beforehand?
0:28.8	Because, I suppose for you it came out of the blue?
0:32.4	No, no, no, it's me quite. I suppose for you it came out of the blue.
0:33.0	No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
0:35.0	there weren't any signs beforehand that anything like this could happen.
0:39.0	No signals at all.
0:41.0	It was Monday, 7th of October, a totally normal day in school.
0:47.0	Everything was normal in the morning and then all of a sudden it happened.
0:52.0	Something the headmaster had never known in his 36 years of
0:55.7	teaching. The security guy came and said there was a group of very worried
1:01.5	parents in the playground and they wanted to take their kids out of school.
1:05.0	My name's Angl. I was at work when I heard something was happening.
1:12.0	I saw it on the internet, live video and I got scared and I went to the school.
1:18.0	What did you see on the internet?
1:22.0	Parents were taking their children out of school,
1:25.0	so I went to get my child as well.
1:28.0	Literally out of the blue, a crowd arrived.
1:33.0	Uba Mirivanov works in another school nearby.
	...

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