Muslims vandalize Bulgarian Orthodox Church site after physical attack on local mosque

The hackers left a message accusing the church of failing to condemn the hurling of firecrackers and stones at a city mosque three months ago.

"Whoever was the organizer (of the mosque attack), he should know that the Turkish-Muslim minority is not helpless and that there are forces that are watching and ready to defend it," the statement posted on www.bg-patriarshia.bg/ read.

Many Bulgarian Muslims have roots in neighboring Turkey.

The hackers -- calling themselves Milli Gucler ('national forces' in Turkish) -- replaced the site’s homepage with a Turkish flag and the message.

The note appeared the morning of 5/15 and seemed to have been removed soon after midday.

The hack underlines “simmering sectarian tensions in the EU's poorest country,” Reuters reports. News of “a sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers in the Balkan country, many of them from Syria, have provoked several anti-immigrant protests organized by far-right groups and an increasing number of racist attacks in recent months.”

The majority of Bulgarians are Orthodox Christians, with Muslims comprising about 12 percent of the population.

ThreatWatch is a regularly updated catalog of data breaches successfully striking every sector of the globe, as reported by journalists, researchers and the victims themselves.