User:Genogenov/Eduard genov

Eduard Genov is a [Bulgarian] political activist for human rights under the communist regime.

He was born July 1st 1946 in Sofia, Bulgaria. His activism started in 1964 when he formed the group Youth Organization for National Freedom. He was arrested and sentenced, but due to an amnesty only stayed in prison for 1 month. In 1968 when he was a student at Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, he protested publicly against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the forces of the Warsaw Pact. He was arrested in October of that year and was sentenced in January of 1969 for the organization of an illegal contra-revolutionary group to a 5 year sentence. He spent the majority of his sentence in Stara Zagora prison, where he received a second sentence for conspiracy to escape. He was freed in 1978.

In 1987 Eduard Genov is one of the signers of the Appeal of the Six. An open letter to the international conference dedicated to the compliance with the Helsinki Agreements. He is once again arrested for a short time. In the beginning of 1988 he was one of the founders of the Independent Society for Human Rights. He was arrested on June 6th and expelled from Sofia to a small town Mihalkovo. He was then allowed to go back to Sofia in October. On October 13th he was given 5 days to leave the country by the government. He takes a train to Vienna and after about 30 days there relocates to San Francisco, Ca.

Eduard Genov died from a heart attack on December 16th, 2009.