Movement for Rights and Freedoms
 |
|
| President | Mustafa Karadaya |
| Honorary President | Ahmed Dogan |
| Founded | January 4, 1990 |
| Headquarters | Sofia |
| Membership |
 66,000 in 2015 (3rd) |
| Ideology |
Centrism Liberalism Social liberalism Turkish minority interests |
| Political position | Centre-left |
| European affiliation | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe |
| International affiliation | Liberal International |
| European Parliament group | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe |
| Colours | Blue |
| National Assembly |
26 / 240
|
| European Parliament |
4 / 17
|
| Website | |
| www |
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The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgarian: Движение за права и свободи (ДПС), Dvizhenie za prava i svobodi (DPS); Turkish: Hak ve Özgürlükler Hareketi (HÖH)) is a centrist political party in Bulgaria.
It is a member of the Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party, and is a liberal party, whose main goal are the interests of the Muslims, especially Turks. However, its principal electorate are also the Pomaks (Muslim Bulgarians) and the party relies on the biggest share of all the Romani voters, nevertheless 9 out of its 36 deputies are not of Muslim background. At the 2014 parliamentary elections, 3% of Bulgarian voters, 83% of Turkish voters and 44% of Romani voters voted for the movement, a record high share of Romani voters. The party won in completely Christian Romani villages and thus was alleged for trading with their vote.
The party was officially established in 1990, but the official website of the party traces the roots of the foundation to 1983 when an illegal terrorist group Turkish National Freedom Movement was established, which committed over 50 fire-raisings, bomb attempts and murders on regular citizens until 1989 as a rebellion against the assimilation policies of Todor Zhivkov's communist regime. After he had been set free out of the jail in 1989, Ahmed Dogan, a former member of the Bulgarian communist secret service (the Committee for State Security), established the party. He headed it from its official establishment on 4 January 1990 until 19 January 2013, when a disgruntled Bulgarian Turk attacked him with a gas pistol. Ahmed Dogan has been openly recorded promoting changes of the international boundaries in accordance with the ethnic borders, clarifying that there are either peaceful and political means for this or military and aggressive. The ethnic or religious minority parties are not allowed according to Article 11, Paragraph 4 of the Constitution of Bulgaria, but the Constitutional Court denied to ban the party in 1992.
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Wikipedia