E/CN.4/1995/91 page 29 On 15 April 1994, Father Yorolan (Bancho) Petrov, a married priest and father of three, is reported to have been shot through the heart in front of a mosque in the village of Surnitsa, in the Velingrad region, by a municipal policeman, Viktor Duvkov. Father Petrov is said to have been a former member of the clergy of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria who joined the Old Calendarist Greek Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili several years ago after severely criticizing the Patriarchate. Father Petrov is reported to have gone to Surnitsa to buy a car from Mr. O. Olikanov, whom certain information later identified as an employee of the Department of Security and Protection under the former regime. Not finding Mr. Olikanov, Father Petrov apparently looked for a bank where he could deposit the money he had intended to use to pay for the vehicle. Failing to find one, he apparently decided to make some purchases, including logs of wood for a church in Sofia. However, Muslim extremists had allegedly called the police to report that a man in a cassock was going around the town in a suspicious manner. On leaving the town, near a petrol station, Father Petrov seems to have been violently accosted and pursued by two men in civilian clothes armed with a submachine gun and a pistol. The priest regained the town and apparently stopped in front of a mosque where he was killed by Mr. Duvkov, one of the two assailants identified as belonging to the police. The Special Rapporteur was also informed that an act of February 1994 was apparently adopted to provide a legal framework for religious activity, particularly that of sects, and that a decree which came into force in Plovdiv in March 1994 reportedly made religious activities subject to certain restrictions. The Special Rapporteur would like to receive these texts, together with any pertinent comments which the Government of Bulgaria may wish to make." On 10 November 1994 the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria transmitted the following information in reply to the allegations mentioned above: "The Government of Bulgaria complies strictly with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international human rights instruments incorporated into the Bulgarian Constitution. The right to freedom of worship is not and cannot be restricted, except in the cases set out in article 13.4 (’Religious institutions and communities may not be used for political purposes’) and article 37.2 (’Freedom of conscience and religion may not be practised in a form detrimental to national security, public order, public health and morals, or the rights and freedoms of others’) of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, and article 9.2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The liberalization of Bulgarian legislation which took place after 1989 following the repeal by the Constitutional Court of several provisions of the Worship Act which infringed the Constitution, has resulted in legal texts being brought strictly into line with international human rights norms. At the