12th day of anti-government protests went on from morning until late evening

12th day anti government protests went morning until late evening

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от БНТ

23:43, 20.07.2020

Protests demanding the resignation of the government and the chief prosecutor continued on July 20. For the 12th day, protesters gathered in the centre of Sofia.

There were protests in other cities, including Bourgas, Plovdiv, Varna, Rousse, Smolyan.

The anti-government protest in front of the building of Parliament lasted from the morning until the evening.

Protesters raised slogans for the occupation of the Parliament in the absence of the prime minister, who is currently in Brussels to take part in the European Council meeting.

In the recent days, at the request of the police, the protests in Sofia ended at around 10 pm.

At around 8 pm, the main protest in front of the Parliament announced its official end. Groups of protesters remained to block the traffic at the junction next to Sofia University and Eagles Bridge.

Today's protests lasted more than 15 hours. The square in front of the Parliament was filled with people with three main demands: the resignation of the government, the chief prosecutor and early elections.

The demonstrations took place without incidents and without tension.

At 20:00 the entire square in front of the Parliament near the intersection with Vasil Levski Blvd. was full of people. Traffic on Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd. and Vasil Levski Blvd. was blocked.

Early in the morning, while there were debates in the Parliament on the vote of no confidence against the cabinet, outside the protesters blocked traffic on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard.

And they addressed their demands to the MPs:

"We must use every permissible approach in order to be heard and to be understood by the prime minister, because he obviously still does not understand that in fact the whole of Bulgaria is already against this government."

"You know how to unclog a drain when it's clogged with rubbish, it takes a lot of effort, then rubbish starts to flow... There has to be elections until the whole political system is cleared."

At noon, some of the protesters for a short period of time stopped the service of the underground in the direction of Mladost after activating the safety button at the Sofia University station.

Protesters danced horo dance at the National Assembly Square.

"Things are going towards an attempt to keep Borissov in place at all costs. There are two options. One is to have a straw man, straw people, whom Borissov will command by text message, as he has done so far. The other option is to remove everyone from the cabinet other than himself. For us, the citizens, no option is acceptable, because it means that corruption remains. We will not step back until chief prosecutor Geshev is removed,” said Nikolai Hadzhigenov, organiser of the protest.

"We give them two more days to think, obviously they need a little more time to think, we have already thought and we think that resignations are no longer on the agenda, but sentences and imprisonment are."

Nearly 13 hours after the protest began, protesters blocked the intersection of Sofia University.

Some of the protesters also arrived in front of the Bulgarian National Television, where they demanded the resignation of the Director General, Emil Koshlukov. This was demanded by membersof the public, representatives of the “Bulgaria United with One Purpose” (BUOP) movement, "Justice for Everyone" and the leader of "Yes Bulgaria" Hristo Ivanov, who said that he was not satisfied with the way BNT covered the situation and therefore he referred to the Council for Electronic Media . BUOP tried to enter the television, but were stopped by the police.

The protesters erected a tent in front of the entrance of BNT and said that today the blockade was only a warning.