April 28, 2017

28/04/2017: NORTH MACEDONIA – SEEMO APPALLED AFTER ASSAULTS OCCUR IN MACEDONIAN PARLIAMENT

Vienna, 28/04/2017

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) was shocked to learn that during yesterday’s unrest in Macedonia two journalists were attacked and injured.

On 27 April, about 200 demonstrators stormed into the Parliament building in Skopje, protesting the newly elected speaker of the Assembly, who is also an ethnic Albanian. A violent brawl began, injuring several members of the opposition political party as well as two journalists, Nikola Ordevski and Dimitar Tanurov.

Ordevski, a cameraman for Makfaks news agency, was assaulted by several individuals during the brawl and later hospitalized with a concussion.

Dimitar Tanurov, reporter of the independent online news agency Meta, claims he was assaulted even after he showed his press card, and obtained several injuries but did not receive medical care. In addition, 21 journalists were threatened or outright banned from reporting at the scene on 27 April.

SEEMO is a network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in South, East and Central Europe and its press freedom work is supported by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) project, as part of a grant by the European Commission.