Cart ban infringes gypsy rights: Bulgarian MPs

A Bulgarian parliamentary committee Thursday accused the city of Sofia of discriminating against gypsies by banning the use of horse carts around the city.

"Carts are listed as ‘vehicles’ under Bulgarian traffic rules so the ban is a form of segregation," committee chairman Lalo Kamenov told bTV television.

"The inhabitants of the Filipovtsi gypsy neighbourhood just outside Sofia cannot even cross the ringroad" around the city with their carts, he said.

Many gypsies, or Roma, provide for their families by gathering scrap iron and transporting it on carts to recycling centres.
Sofia’s authorities have long banned the circulation of horse carts in the city centre but the gypsies have not protested that ban as they rarely travel downtown.

Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov said he would not lift the measure despite the committee’s recommendation to do so. He advised the gypsies instead to "turn their carts into carriages and attract tourists the way they do in Vienna."