Vienna, 15/07/2015
Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Vladimir Pesevski today physically attacked Sase Ivanovski – Politiko, editor-in-chief and owner of the online portal Maktel. The incident happened after the journalist tried to get a statement from Pesevski. Aftet the attack, Pesevski apologized for his reaction toward the journalist. However his party, the ruling party VMRO-DPMNE, issued a statement describing Ivanovski as provocative. According to a party-statement ““next time, SDSM (SDSM is the main opposition party, its force such as Politiko, and all those similar to him should be aware of the consequences resulting from any threat to privacy, freedom and rights that every person and entity has regardless of the position being held”.
“It is not acceptable what happened. I am asking: how a politician in power can physical attack a journalists? I hope this will never happen again and I am asking for an urgent investigation of the case. The state prosecutor must react in this case”, Oliver Vujovic, SEEMO Secretary General said.
SEEMO’s 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.