The mayor of Galabovo, Nikolai Tonev, arrogantly attacked journalist Venelina Popova from the website “For the Truth.” Popova shared with the European Association of Journalists (AEJ) screenshots from her phone showing that Tonev sent her offensive messages via the Viber platform.
The messages were prompted by a critical article by Venelina Popova about the elections, with Tonev claiming that he was not contacted to express his viewpoint. This is not the first verbal outburst from the mayor against the journalist. In a previous instance on December 4 of last year, he threatened to sue her “to the fullest extent” if she did not retract her publication, in which she detailed how Nikolai Tonev dealt vindictively with residents of villages who dared to vote for his opponent in the recent local elections in 2023.
Tonev won his sixth mayoral term as a candidate of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and after the party split, he aligned himself with the faction of Delyan Peevski. In the recent snap parliamentary elections, he was in second place on the Stara Zagora list for “DPS – New Beginning,” but after being elected, he submitted a request to the Central Election Commission to be removed from the list.
A few years ago, in her investigation, Venelina revealed a secretly prepared contract between the municipality of Galabovo and the power plant “Brikel” for the incineration of 500,000 tons of municipal waste delivered from Italy. Now, represented by lawyer Alexander Kashamov from the Access to Information Program Foundation, Venelina is challenging the tacit refusal of Nikolai Tonev to provide her with documentation related to the municipality’s intention to build a new power plant for the incineration of RDF in partnership with a private investor from Germany at the Administrative Court in Stara Zagora.
In the messages to Venelina Popova, in addition to bombarding her with low-quality insults, Nikolai Tonev attempts to wound her with overtly sexist cynicism. Furthermore, the messages are not only extremely offensive but also poorly written, with words like “отврат” (disgust) and “глътка” (sip) incorrectly spelled with a “д” instead of a “т.”
The Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria tried to reach Tonev on both of his mobile numbers, but both were turned off.
We strongly oppose such a style of communication between politicians and journalists and urge the leadership of “DPS – New Beginning,” represented by Delyan Peevski, to express their stance and respond to the question of whether Nikolai Tonev’s manner of interacting with journalists aligns with the “Euro-Atlantic values” that he claims to advocate.
Venelina Popova is a long-standing journalist at BNR and has been a correspondent for the “Horizon” program from Stara Zagora since 2001. She has served twice as the editor-in-chief of Radio Stara Zagora. She is a recipient of the “Panitza” award for civic courage, has received awards from the National Ombudsman, and from the family foundation “Metropolitan Metodiy Kusev.” Venelina is also the first recipient of the “Red Line” award from the Anti-Corruption Fund for regional journalism. She is a member of AEJ-Bulgaria.
- AEJ-Bulgaria possesses screenshots of the threatening messages directed at the journalists, but due to the obscene and offensive content, we have decided not to publish images of the messages.
