Macedonia PM Vows to Stop Ethnic Unrest
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Friday’s protest in Skopje turned violent | Photo by: Sinisa Jakov Marusic |
“The state won’t let these protests escalate to an extent where they can jeopardise the interests of the people and the [country’s] institutions,” Gruevski told media on Monday after clashes between ethnic Albanian protesters and riot police over the past several days.
“We support peaceful protests like in any democratic country, but no one, nowhere, can support protests where violence is used,” he said.
His comments came after ethnic Albanians were urged to rally again in the capital Skopje and other towns where Albanians make up a sizable proportion of the population.
The anonymous protest organisers, who spread their message via social networks, called on Albanians to rally every day “until our boys are released”, although no demonstrators were seen on the streets of the capital on Monday afternoon.
The protesters are angry at the life sentences handed down to six alleged Muslim radicals for the killing of five ethnic Macedonians at Orthodox Easter in 2012, in a case that raised ethnic tensions in the country.
Alleged Islamic extremists Alil Demiri, Afrim Ismailovic, Agim Ismailovic, Fejzi Aziri, Haki Aziri and Sami Ljuta were convicted of terrorism over the 2012 killings last Monday. One other defendant was acquitted.
On Friday, the protests quickly turned violent as several thousand people, mainly young men, charged towards the Skopje Criminal Court, throwing stones and bricks at the building and at riot police, who responded with tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades.
| Detained Journalist Released | |
| The head of the Journalists’ Association of Macedonia, ZNM, Naser Selmani welcomed the release on Sunday of detained reporter Besim , who the police arrested for allegedly being part of a vioent mob during Friday’s protest in Skopje.
However the prosecution has not yet decided wither it will press charges against Ibrahimi, who is working as an intern for the Albanian-language newspaper Lajm. “The decision of the judge deserves congratulations. We expect that at the end of the process, the prosecution will decide not to file charges against our colleague,” Selmani said. Ibrahimi’s newspaper and the ZNM insisted that the arrest was absurd because Ibrahimi was only reporting on the protest and not participating in it. |
Police say they have identified more than 20 violent protesters from Friday and are preparing criminal charges against them.
There were also smaller rallies in Skopje and other towns over the weekend, most of them peaceful.
But violence flared again in the western town of Tetovo on Sunday, as police used stun grenades to disperse about 1,000 protesters chanting slogans against the government and against the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, the biggest Albanian political party in Macedonia.
Gruevski’s ruling VMRO DPMNE party has rejected the accusation by some Albanian-language media that it staged the entire court case for political reasons.
“The VMRO DPMNE and its leadership would never apply pressure on courts or judges, especially not for the sentencing of people to life in jail if they are innocent or if there is not enough evidence against them,” the party said.
The prosecutor in the ethnically-charged court case, Gordana Geskovska, has also rebuffed allegations that the case was politically motivated.
The Albanian and Kosovo authorities meanwhile have appealed for calm after the unrest.
“Violence does not help in resolving this issue and undermines the harmony and inter-ethnic relations between communities,” the Albanian foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The Kosovo government urged all sides to resolve their disputes “with maturity and through mutual dialogue”.
“The respect of fundamental constitutional and institutional rights is the only way to avoid any escalation of violence, which could be followed by serious consequences for the whole region,” it said in a statement on Monday.
In 2001, Macedonia went through a brief armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and the security forces. The conflict ended the same year with the signing of a peace deal that increased Albanian rights.
Albanians make up a quarter of the country’s 2.1 million population.
