Trial of Muslims accused of propagating radical ideas resumes in Bulgaria

The trial of 13 Muslims accused of propagating radical ideas is scheduled to resume in Pazardjik, Bulgaria on February 18. It began in September 2012. In June 2012, 12 men and one woman from Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish minority faced charges for allegedly preaching the Salafite ideology of militant extremist Sunnis in the southern regions of Smolyan, Blagoevgrad and Pazardzhik. Bulgaria's grand mufti, Husein Hafazov, protested against the accusations that members of the Muslim community, including clerics and teachers, were propagating radical Islamist ideas.