Iassen Boyadjiev has been working with Radio Darik in Sofia, Bulgaria since he got fired by Bulgaria's national radio network in early 1996 after criticising, on-air, the extent to which the state is exercising power over journalists. Shortly afterwards he co-founded the Civic Forum 'Free Speech' of which he is chairman. In this interview Boyadjiev relates the short history of the Bulgarian radio landscape since 1989, joint ventures of independent networking with Belgrade in 1997/97 and the current development of licensing and telecommunications legislation. The interview was conducted on the 12th October 1998 at the ICA Sofia by Micz Flor.

Crash Media: Since the decline of socialism a lot has been happening in Bulgaria concerning private and independent radio culture. Is this a culture where pirate radio and private enterprises are soul mates?

Iassen Boyadjiev: Until today, based on the precise definition of pirate radio, there has only been one example in Bulgaria. That was around 7 years ago, when Sofia based broadcasting station Radio 99 - which is still in existence - went on-air from their apartment. But this pirate broadcast was closed down literally after 48 hours by the authorities. However, at that time several teams were already well equipped and ready to start private broadcasts.

And in 1991 a group of Bulgarians entered an agreement with Voice of America Europe and managed to borrow money from other American organisations. They started re-transmitting the broadcasts of VOA Europe. Later this got legalised by the Vice President Dimitar Ludzhev, despite the fact that there was no existing legislation concerning broadcasting in Bulgaria. It was merely a decision on his part.

At the end of 1992 the first licensed private radio stations started broadcasting - the first one was FM Plus followed in January 1993 by Darik Radio where I am working today.

The strange thing is that even today, from a legislative point of view, all the private stations are broadcasting illegally. No law regulating broadcasting has yet been passed. This is due to the recent history of this country where many things after 1989 started happening because of provisional regulations. At one point there was a temporary commission which was authorised to distribute frequencies. It was a body composed of representatives of the parliament as well as members of the committee of telecommunications. This 'provisional' temporary commission followed some 'provisional' temporary rules. A lot of members of this commission became very rich in a very short period of time due to this provisional arrangement - but I can't actually prove it.

CM: A few years ago you helped to established a link with radio Index in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, at a time when in both countries a series of uprisings and changes were underway.

I.B.: If I am not mistaken this exchange took place either in the very end of 1996 or the beginning of 1997. At that time the street demonstration of students and other people in Belgrade had already been going on for some time, and the street demonstrations here were just starting. Here they eventually lead to the fall of the government constituted by the former communist party. At that time all of us had colleagues and friends and even a correspondent in Belgrade and so we got the idea to enter a joint broadcast.

Initially we were aiming to establish the exchange with B92, but due to some technical difficulties we could not realise it. Eventually we worked with the radio station Index. In their Belgrade studio several leaders of the protesting students were present and in our studio in Sofia we hosted a number of Bulgarian students. The discussion between the Serbian students in Belgrade and the Bulgarian students in Sofia was realised using the simplest possible technology, meaning telephone lines. We even broadcasted songs coming through the telephone lines. Of course the quality was not that good but both sides were able to catch the message. The songs from Belgrade were the songs of Goran Bregovic, and from Sofia our protest songs came through the phone lines.

Interestingly the students here in Sofia were different from the ones involved in the activities at the end of 1989, they were beginners. So there was a lot of enthusiasm, they were learning from the Belgrade students and really appreciated what happened there and the ways in which they organised their activities.

And about three months later we established another link. At this point the Bulgarian side was giving advice to the Belgrade students how to achieve real results. The they were not getting anywhere whereas here we could see concrete results and a real change of the situation.

CM: So who owns the Bulgarian air-waves at the moment?

I.B.: According to the constitution the air-waves are exclusively within the authority of the state. Some time ago a law was passed concerning licenses including radio frequencies. The law was composed in such a way that for many years nobody got a license for anything. So all the private radio stations which were already working with temporary licenses firstly renewed them and later kept on working without licenses. Since there is still no legislation today, they are practically legal pirate radios.

CM: But those temporary gentlemen's agreements will change in the near future?

I.B.: A legislation is currently being discussed and will probably be passed in the near future: the law concerning radio, television and telecommunications. According to this legislation the already existing stations will be given licenses and the new ones will need to apply and eventually be given licenses. The big debate which is currently going on in this country is the question of who will have the authority to issue those licenses. The 'Free Speech' society and I as the chairman are thoroughly following this debate. So far there has been the suggestion by the government that licenses are issued by a commission appointed by the 'Minsterski Suvet' (Council of Ministers), which means that licenses will be issued by the executive powers. What we and many others are fighting for is an independent body which will have the authority to issue such licenses. We believe - and reality proves us right - that for the period of time until licenses will eventually be issued by the authorities, independent radio stations become dependent on the executive branch of power and will be in a position where they have to accept many limitations from that body.

CM: How did the Civic Forum 'Free Speech' come into existence and what do you consider to be its main function?

I.B.: The 'Free Speech' society was founded in the beginning of 1996, when a number of journalists got fired from the national radio broadcasting station after speaking out on the control of the state over journalists at the national radio station. And as a result approximately 150 individuals got together in January 1996 in the lecture hall of the Sofia State University and formed this organisation. The 'Free Speech' society includes not only journalists but also people from other professions.

One of our main objectives are the state of independence of media, identifying attacks on this independence, cases of censorship and so on. Since we are journalists, we know how to operate in the public media space, we know how to make our voices heard. So far we were able to make a number of suggestions and also produce our own version of the legislation concerning radio, media and telecommunication. We have reached a point where even the constitutional court is inviting us to assist on several cases concerning media legislation. Additionally, we are publishing a magazine called 'Chetvurta Vlast', the Fourth Power - after the executive, legislative and jurisdictional powers.

Thanks to Luchezar Boyadjiev for interpreting.

Forum "Free Speech" [slovo96@hotmail.com]

Darik Radio [http://www.comfm.fr/sites/rdirect/bg.html]

Micz Flor [micz@yourserver.co.uk]