Are the "Not One More" protests against gender-based violence in Bulgaria organized by political activists to introduce the Istanbul Convention, the human rights treaty of the Council of Europe? No, that's not true: The wave of public protests across the country started after a 26-year-old man was suspected having used extreme violence against his girlfriend. The protests in Sofia on July 31, 2023 and later in Stara Zagora and other Bulgarian cities, were initially organized by a female citizen called Silvia Stoycheva, who created a Facebook event and outed herself in public as organizer. Initiators of the follow up "Not One More" protests are not political figures, but members of Feminist Mobilizations which is a volunteer activist group that fights for social, economic and political gender equality by organizing protest actions and information campaigns related to women's rights and gender-based violence. Feminist Mobilizations joined Stoycheva's protests later and offered help.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published on Aug 2, 2023 with the following Bulgarian caption, translated by the Bulgarian Lead Stories staff:
Is it a coincidence or a well planned scenario to introduce the "ISTANBUL CONVENTION", what do you think? YES, NOW WE KNOW WHAT THE WHOLE CIRCUS WAS ABOUT!!!
YOU WANT TO DO THAT BUT _!_
WE ARE GOING TO TAKE OFF YOUR LITTLE AMERICAN SATANIC SHIRTS!!!
YOU TRIED TO CARRY OUT THE NASTY IDEAS OF THE USA AND THE EU THROUGH THE PAIN OF THIS FAMILY!!!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 16 18:47:20 2023 UTC)
"Not One More" protests against gender-based violence started in August this year. The wave of protests were triggered by the violence against 18-year-old Debora Mihailova from Stara Zagora (South Central Bulgaria). Her arms, legs and chest were cut, her nose was broken and her hair was cut. The young woman was saved, but received 400 stitches. The alleged perpetrator is her 26-year-old boyfriend, who was initially detained for 72 hours and then released. At the moment, he has been charged under two investigations for threat to kill and for inflicting bodily harm. As a result of the public activism, on August 7, parliament broke off it's summer break to adopt tougher punishments for bodily injury and ensure better protection of domestic violence victims.
The false claim that the protests against the crime were not spontaneous but "organized" by political activists with the aim of introducing the Istanbul Convention was also spread by some social media in Bulgaria. But the initial protest in Sofia on July 31, 2023 and later those in Stara Zagora and other Bulgarian cities, were initiated by Silvia Stoycheva. The collective Feminist Mobilizations told Factcheck.bg that the organization became part of the protests later. The collective also connected with organizers of protests in other Bulgarian cities, providing support and publicity through its social media platforms for all protest events on July 31. The group is not affiliated with a political party.
Another Lead Stories fact check about the Istanbul Convention can be found here.
