A little over a week ago, a 22 year old man was beaten to death in the center of Skopje by a member of the special police force called the "Tigers." The government-run media initially refused to report on it, and the only statement was that his body was found. Bloggers and twitterers started to question this story and brought out the truth. Then there was a protest in Skopje against police brutality and the cover-up, and for an investigation and the arrest of the officer.
The protest grew the next day to over 1,000 people, and has continued every day for a week, and there have been several protests in other cities. I have to think that part of the anger and source of the protests comes from the election just a day or two prior to the killing, where the party in power, the ever-more-fascist VMRO-DPMNE once again gained a majority (also, apparently the victim had been at an election party prior to his death). Still, there is a very real problem in Macedonia with cronyism and corruption, and there needs to be much more accountability for the police (and others in power, too).
You can watch a report from Al-Jazeera English about it:
I've been following the news here: http://www.a1.com.mk and at the official protest website here : http://protestira.me/
English-speakers can follow what's going on on this blog: http://vnukot.blogspot.com/
There's a facebook event - Protest every day against police brutality - as well. (Mostly it's in Macedonian, but there are links to news in English, as well.)
The protest grew the next day to over 1,000 people, and has continued every day for a week, and there have been several protests in other cities. I have to think that part of the anger and source of the protests comes from the election just a day or two prior to the killing, where the party in power, the ever-more-fascist VMRO-DPMNE once again gained a majority (also, apparently the victim had been at an election party prior to his death). Still, there is a very real problem in Macedonia with cronyism and corruption, and there needs to be much more accountability for the police (and others in power, too).
You can watch a report from Al-Jazeera English about it:
I've been following the news here: http://www.a1.com.mk and at the official protest website here : http://protestira.me/
English-speakers can follow what's going on on this blog: http://vnukot.blogspot.com/
There's a facebook event - Protest every day against police brutality - as well. (Mostly it's in Macedonian, but there are links to news in English, as well.)
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