Right to Know Day around the world - Bulgaria

Organizer: Access to information Programme
Date: September 28, 2007
Event: RKD Awards ceremony

To promote and celebrate the Right to Know Day in Bulgaria, Access to Information Programme (AIP) will organize and hold the Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony for the fifth successive year.

Preparing for the event, AIP has:

• issued a special August issue of its Monthly Electronic Newsletter, which is distributed to more than 1,000 subscribers, to announce the coming of September 28. The August newsletter focused on the 2006 Awards Ceremony in Bulgaria and the campaign for a stronger future Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents. The Newsletter (in Bulgarian) is also accessible at: http://www.aip-bg.org/bulletin_bg.htm;
  updated its web site and also the special www.RightToKnowDay.net site;
• collected more than 50 nominations for the 7 different categories (5 positive and 2 negative) for the RKD Awards. The seven categories and the criteria can be found at: http://www.r2kd.com/categories_eng.php;
• sent out 350 posters promoting the Right to Know Day;
• sent out 1,900 FOIANet leaflets on how to promote and celebrate the Right to Know Day;
• prepared promotion materials – caps, T-shirts, pins – to be distributed on September 28 at the Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony;
• sent out 300 invitations to institutions, media, NGOs, partners, clients, and friends to attend the event.

The posters and leaflets are being disseminated with the help of AIP coordinators throughout all regions of Bulgaria. AIP coordinators, who are all journalists, have already started the media campaign accompanying the Right to Know Day in Bulgaria by publishing and broadcasting in local media about the forthcoming Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony.

The Awards Ceremony will be held on September 28 at the Press Club of the Bulgarian News Agency. The traditional Golden Key, Tied Key and Padlock Awards will be given to the greatest contributors to the freedom of information and the biggest violators of FOI rights in Bulgaria.

The event will be broadcast on Internet and can be followed live on September 28 at 16:00 CET here: http://www.bta.bg/site/bg/html/03services.shtml