SOFIA, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - A Bulgarian court has banned an Islamic association from operating in the country, accusing it of fanning religious hatred, it was announced Monday.

The association Charitable Projects, which has been active in Bulgaria since the mid-1990s, was banned for 'propagating religious hatred against the majority Christian Orthodox Bulgarians and the traditionally Hanif Muslims in the country,' the State Agency for National Security (DANS) said in a statement.

The ruling was made by a court in the eastern city of Burgas

The agency added that Charitable Projects was an offspring of the Lebanese Sunni Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, known as the Habashi Movement.

Habashi military structures participated in the 1980s civil war in Lebanon, while its members are reported to have been among the attackers of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, when he was assassinated in 2005, the DANS statement said.

The Bulgarian branch of the association was 'fully targeted towards conducting religious and education activities among the Roma population.'

It organised secret prayer services in homes in the central cities of Plovdiv and Pazardzhik as well as in an illegally built mosque in Burgas, the statement added.

'The activity of the association sparked conflicts in the Muslim Roma communities in the above mentioned cities,' DANS said.

The Burgas regional court took the decision to ban the organisation and sue its Roma leader 'for harming the national interest and religious rights and creating conditions for violation of the religious and ethnic peace in Bulgaria.'

No Habashi structures are any longer functioning on Bulgarian territory, DANS said.

Bulgaria, the majority of whose population is Christian Orthodox, also has a 12 percent Muslim population, largely made up of ethnic Turks and part of the Roma community whch is estimated to form 10 percent of the population.

There have been no major conflicts between the two communities that often mingle in the small towns and villages in the country's south and northeast.

The Muslim minority party, Movement for Rights and Freedoms, has been a key partner in the last two governments since 2001.

But Bulgarian authorities have recently warned that different Islamic movements try to operate in the country under cover of charitable foundations or business companies.