Balgarianovinite.com BTA Director General Kiril Valchev thanked Bulgarian attorneys for their support and defence of journalists and the media at the Annual General Assembly of Attorneys in Bulgaria in Sofia on Saturday.
Valchev also said he expected cooperation between the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and the Bulgarian Bar to continue under the profession’s new leadership.
Valchev said he had more than 20 years of legal practice, mainly in intellectual property, and that only temporarily, under the law, he had suspended his rights to practice as an attorney while serving as BTA Director General.
In his address, Valchev thanked the previous leadership of the Bulgarian Bar for its joint work with the national news agency and voiced confidence that it would continue with the new leadership. He also thanked the Supreme Bar Council for supporting his election to a second term as BTA Director General.
Valchev recalled that his second term began on the eve of the agency’s 128th anniversary, February 16, the date when the first news bulletin was published in 1898, “ten years after the adoption of Bulgaria’s first Attorneys Act, which places our two institutions among the first to extend their work across three centuries in the history of modern Bulgaria”.
He illustrated the importance of the protection Bulgarian media and journalists receive with a specific case. During a police check, BTA received an inquiry from a district police chief in a small town asking “who, in a BTA car, one of the clearly marked electric vehicles used by correspondents and carrying the agency’s logos, was taking pictures of the park, the mosque, the kindergarten and other buildings in a village”.
BTA reporters and correspondents, like journalists from all Bulgarian media, constantly take photos in public places because it is part of their job, so that media outlets can uphold Bulgarian citizens’ constitutional right to information, Valchev said.
He explained that the case concerned BTA’s Bulgaria in Four Seasons project, under which public spaces and buildings are photographed in more than 5,000 населени places. So far, the project has produced 56,600 photos from 3,949 places. “Imagine what it would be like if, in each of them, a police chief opened a check on why a BTA journalist is photographing the square,” Valchev said.
He described the case as another example of why protecting the right to information remained important and recalled that the European Court of Human Rights had case law saying journalists could not be barred from photographing in public places, including a 2009 ruling linked to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Thanks to the lawyers of journalists and media outlets, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and Bulgarian courts have built up extensive case law that protects the right to information, Valchev said.
Valchev also noted Bulgaria’s progress in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, where the country ranked 70th out of 180 in 2025, up from 111th in 2019.
In his closing remarks, Valchev said that BTA would continue to systematically cover the work of the legal profession. BTA data show that over the past 10 years it has published 2,828 stories about Bulgarian attorneys, bar associations, and the Supreme Bar Council. In 2025, the totals were 708 in Bulgarian and 284 in English.
Bulgarian journalism would continue to rely on the support of the Bulgarian Bar, Valchev said, as he wished the assembly productive work. BTA Director General Valchev Salutes Attorneys’ Role in Defending the Right to Information 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-02-21 16:13:00 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law