The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Europe protested Monday over an author whom it accuses of writing racist articles being awarded a media prize in Bulgaria, dpa reported.
In a written protest to President Georgi Parvanov, the Paris-based center criticised the 2008 Young Authors Award of the Bulgarian Association of newspaper Publishers going to Kalin Rumenov.
Rumenov, the center said, had regularly contributed "racist" articles to Novinar newspaper attacking minority Roma people in language reminiscent of that of the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.
Such writing, the center said, had "no place in present-day Bulgaria. The appeal to racism, hatred and violence violated Bulgaria's obligations within the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.