Excerpt:
Bulgaria's National Assembly approved on June 15 the first reading of a law banning the wearing in public of clothing that completely or partly covers the fact – a law tabled by the nationalist minority coalition Patriotic Front to outlaw the wearing of the burqa.
The Patriotic Front already has succeeded in getting some municipalities in voting a burqa ban, starting in Pazardzhik in April. Similar bans have been approved in Stara Zagora and in Bourgas, although the municipal council in Bulgaria's second-largest city, Plovdiv, rejected a ban.
The vote in the National Assembly, which has a total of 240 members, was 108 in favour, eight against, with no abstentions.