Ethnic Albanian protest in Macedonia against government policies
Thousands of people from the Albanian community have taken to the streets in Macedonia to protest against the government’s discriminatory policies toward the group, the largest ethnic minority in the Balkan country.
On Saturday, about 2,000 protesters took part in a rally organized by the “Besa” protest movement, which means “Word of Honor” and is dominated by Macedonia’s Albanian minority, in the capital, Skopje.
The marchers urged Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to resign, chanted “Down with the government,” and carried Albanian national flags as they walked passed a large police deployment.
They called on Gruevski’s ruling Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) Party as well as its allied Democratic Union for Integration to cede power.
Skender Rexhepi, a senior organizer of the Saturday protest, told a local television network that Macedonia needs “a new agreement of all citizens” that will “open a...redefinition of the state where Albanians are a constituent element, equal with Macedonians.”
“After all that has happened in Macedonia... the security and legal system of Macedonia has collapsed and we believe Macedonia needs a new deal of all citizens,” Besa spokesman Afrim Gashi said in an apparent reference to recent tensions between ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian government.
“We need to open a process to redefine the state, a process to create a new, stable and developed country with Albanians as a constitutive nation,” he added.
Opposition Social Democratic leader Zoran Zaev accuses Gruevski of abusing power, wiretapping on some 20,000 people – including politicians and journalists – and corruption.
Gruevski’s administration, in return, has leveled numerous charges against Zaev, accusing him of “spying” and attempts to “destabilize” the country.
Besa, the Macedonian protest movement, says it is struggling to put an end to “discrimination against Albanians.”
Ethnic Albanians comprise 25 to 30 percent of Macedonia’s population of 2.1 million.
Tensions between ethnic Albanians and Gruevski’s government deepened last month, when at least 18 people, including eight police officers, lost their lives during clashes between Macedonian armed forces and Albanians in the northern town of Kumanovo.
MP/MKA/HJL
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