A seaside-villa scandal sparks huge protests in Bulgaria

ON JULY 7TH a small boat motored up to a villa near the Black Sea resort town of Burgas. On board (and livestreaming) was Hristo Ivanov, a former justice minister who leads “Yes Bulgaria”, an anti-corruption party. He wanted to show that the villa’s main resident, Ahmed Dogan, founder of a party representing the country’s ethnic Turkish minority, was illegally treating the beach as his own. (In Bulgaria, coastal beaches are public property.) Mr Ivanov alighted and planted a Bulgarian flag, to the consternation of several muscular men in sunglasses who, unmoved by the ex-minister’s protestations of his constitutional rights, pushed him into the water.