THE conferring of Bulgaria's highest national order, the Stara Planina first class, on Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Ahmed Dogan has caused controversy.

President Georgi Purvanov issued the order to mark Dogan's 50th birthday this Monday and "for his extremely great merit in building and preserving democracy, ethnic peace and a spirit of tolerance in Bulgaria".

The initiative to give Dogan the honour was started by Tosho Toshev, Editor-in-Chief of Trud, Bulgaria's largest daily newspaper, and was endorsed by the Government.

The idea, however, caused controversy and some groups in Parliament even accused Purvanov of devaluing the highest national order by giving it to Dogan.

A while ago, Purvanov gave the Stara Planina order to Dimitar Mandjukov, a weapons dealer and publisher of Duma, the party newspaper of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), whose name was mentioned on several occasions in the early stages of the Barrelgate controversy.

The son in law of Todor Zhivkov, Ivan Slavkov, who is head of the Bulgarian Football Union of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee has also received a Stara Planina from Purvanov.

In a declaration read in Parliament, the United Democratic Forces (UtDF) condemned the proposal and urged Purvanov not to give the award to Dogan.

According to the UtDF, the proposal to decorate Dogan with the Stara Planina order was a devaluation of the highest national award and was a challenge to civil society.

"You would decorate a man, who is emblematic to the fanfare democracy in Bulgaria, who is a proven agent of the totalitarian State Security, who has had a decisive role in the bringing down of the first democratically elected Government," the UtDF said.

According to the group, the description of Dogan as one of the major advocates of ethnic tolerance in Bulgaria devalued the role of the rest of society, and the country's ethnic tolerance, by ascribing the achievement to only one person.

Kamen Vlashki, a member of the National Executive Council of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) said that it was immoral to give the Stara Planina to someone who, he alleged, he participated in terrorist acts.

Dogan allegedly participated in acts of terrorism during the resistance by ethnic Turks against their forced renaming by communist-era authorities. At the time, a series of explosions at train stations and airports killed a number of people.

The Novoto Vreme (New Time) parliamentary group, however, condemned UtDF's stance, and the politics of "hatred, animosities, enemies, secrets, slanders and plots, which the UtDF was trying to recreate."

The leader of the National Movement for Rights and Freedoms (NMRF), Gyuner Tahir, said that the unique Bulgarian ethnic model for peaceful coexistence of all Bulgarian citizens of all religions and ethnicities was not the deed of only one person.

According to Tahir, for the past 14 years Dogan had not shone as a politician or a legislator.

"In the meantime, we all remember how six or seven years ago Dogan said he was a millionaire," Tahir said. "Now is the moment to ask him how he became one, and in what business."

Dogan, receiving the order, said he did so on behalf of the entire MRF.

"I was convinced by those people even though it contradicts my principles," Dogan said.

At the ceremony in the presidency, Purvanov said Dogan was receiving the order for his active role in the resistance against the totalitarian rgime before 1989 and for his efforts to protect the rights and freedoms of the ethnic Turks in Bulgaria.

Recently, US ambassador to Bulgaria James Pardew, speaking in the MRF stronghold of Kurdjali, said that parties formed on an ethnic basis were not a good thing and that the uniting of an ethnic group around one political leader should not happen.

According to reports and speculation in some Bulgarian-language media, Purvanov gave the decoration to Dogan to get the MRF's support for the BSP in the national elections scheduled for next year.