"Bulgarian authorities must investigate, acknowledge and publicly condemn hate crimes to prevent such crimes in future and to challenge the deeply entrenched prejudices that exist in Bulgarian society," Amnesty International's researcher on Discrimination in Europe Marco Perolini, was quoted as saying in a statement about the report.
According to the report titled "Bulgaria: Missing the point: Lack of adequate investigation of hate crimes in Bulgaria," hate crime in Bulgaria is mainly caused by "entrenched prejudice" against minority groups such as asylum seekers, migrants, Muslims and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Hate crimes were typically investigated as offenses motivated by "hooliganism", rather than crimes targeting victims based on their ethnicity, migrant status or sexual orientation, the report stated.
As an example, there is no legislation in place to prosecute homophobic hate crimes in Bulgaria while authorities fail to identify hate crimes linked to racism and xenophobia.
While the previous government proposed a new criminal code in January 2014, making sexual orientation a prohibited hate motive, it is unclear if the new government will implement the law.
Meanwhile, the Bulgarian prosecution office opened 80 pre-trial criminal proceedings against minorities for the period January 2013 to March 2014. Despite being a step forward in tackling the abuses, Amnesty said the collected data did not reflect the "full extent" of the crimes.
