{"id":781,"date":"2011-04-21T23:12:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T23:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2011\/04\/21\/violent-mob-attacks-jehovahs-witnesses-in-bulgaria-during-annual-observance-of-christs-death\/"},"modified":"2011-04-21T23:12:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T23:12:06","slug":"violent-mob-attacks-jehovahs-witnesses-in-bulgaria-during-annual-observance-of-christs-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/violent-mob-attacks-jehovahs-witnesses-in-bulgaria-during-annual-observance-of-christs-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Violent mob attacks Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Bulgaria during annual observance of Christ\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial; font-size: small; color: #000000; line-height: normal\" class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">BURGAS, Bulgaria\u2014On Sunday, April 17, 2011, at 7:30 pm, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in the city of Burgas were peacefully gathered at their Kingdom Hall for the annual commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ. About 20 minutes before the program was to begin, an angry mob of about 60 men, some waving flags of the political party VMRO, gathered in front of the Kingdom Hall. The mob threw large stones at the Witnesses who were at the entrance of the building. After that, the mob stormed the door.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">The Witnesses called the police immediately, but they were slow to respond. At the time of the attack, more than 100 people were inside the hall, including women, children and elderly ones. Injuries resulted from the attack, and five victims were taken to the hospital by ambulance with severe injuries, including concussions.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Representatives of the political party VMRO have disrupted the peaceful meetings of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses on several occasions in the past and have repeatedly used the media to circulate defamatory lies about the Witnesses. Criminal complaints against this political party have been filed on numerous occasions, but the attacks have continued. Now, the international community is watching to see how the authorities of the Bulgarian government will react to these lawless and criminal acts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">In Bulgaria last year nearly 4,000 attended the Witnesses\u2019 annual commemoration of Christ\u2019s death. Worldwide there are over 7.5 million Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who peacefully meet together for worship.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jw-media.org\/bgr\/20110421.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.jw-media.org\/bgr\/20110421.htm<\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BURGAS, Bulgaria\u2014On Sunday, April 17, 2011, at 7:30 pm, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in the city of Burgas were peacefully gathered at their Kingdom Hall for the annual commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ. About 20&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}