Bulgarian cops arrest 120 in nationalist attack on mosque

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/14/bulgarian-cops-arrest-120-in-nationalist-attack-on-mosque/



Bulgarian cops arrest 120 in nationalist attack on mosque
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, February 14, 2014 16:21 EST

Bulgarian police arrested Friday more than 120 people after hundreds of stone-throwing nationalists and football hooligans chanting racist slogans tried to storm a mosque in Plovdiv, officials said.

“One policeman and several protesters were injured. Over 120 people were detained” in the central Bulgarian city, interior ministry chief of staff Svetlozar Lazarov told bTV television.

“There was racist and xenophobic chanting and stone throwing,” he said, adding that a tight police cordon prevented attempts by the crowd to “storm” the place of Muslim worship during Friday prayers.

The incident, which comes amid rising anti-foreigner feeling in the European Union’s poorest country, came after a protest by more than 2,000 nationalist and football “ultras” outside Plovdiv’s court of appeal.