This document provides a detailed content analysis of the programs of individual Western broadcasters. It indicates particular sensitivity to broadcasts on Helsinki-related human rights issues, to the use of recent defectors with inside knowledge, and to Radio Free Europe's focus on domestic issues.

Georgi Tsankov testifies before a BCP CC Commission for the Investigation of the Political Trials [against opposition leaders]. He emphasizes the role of the Soviet advisor to the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Gen. Filatov, regarding the human rights abuse of detainees. Vulko Chervenkov talks about Filatov’s disregard of Politburo’s policy decisions, as well as about his eventual withdraw to Moscow by Stalin.

Commission’s findings confirm the allegations of prisoner abuse in the two major labor camp sites – Lovech (for male detainees) and Skravena (for female detainees). The report concludes that camp living conditions and the physical abuse of detainees constitute a divergence from the party policy on combating crime. The report further recommends that the two labor camps be closed down and that the former leadership of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs take full responsibility for the negative consequences of camps’ existence.

Based on intelligence sources, the Minister of Internal Affairs Dimitar Stoyanov reports on domestic political developments. Among the issues covered in the memo are the domestic repercussions of the January 1987 Plenary Session of the CPSU Central Committee, as well as the Western allegations of human rights violations in regard to Bulgaria’s policy toward the Turkish ethnic minority.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dimitar Stoyanov, reports on the coverage in the Western media of the alleged repressions against six Bulgarian dissidents who sent an open letter to the 1986 CSCE Meeting in Vienna. The letter claimed that Bulgaria does not comply fully with the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights of 1975. The Minister reports that although some measures have been taken to neutralize the activities of this particular dissident group, the official investigation has been suspended as there was a risk of further tarnishing Bulgaria’s image abroad.