The Association of Journalists reacted to Raskovski’s inappropriate attitude towards the journalists during Tuesday’s press conference.

The inappropriate and arrogant attitude followed by threats of lawsuits against journalists shadowed today’s press conference held by Dragi Raskovski, the Secretary General of the Government of the North Republic of Macedonia. Such direct threats to initiate court proceedings against journalists by senior government officials present a pressure to journalists that may result in self-censorship. The Secretary General of the Government, Raskovski, needs to know that by failing to respond to journalistic questions at a press conference, which he organizes himself, but also with the brazen attitude towards individual journalists present at this event, it violates the concept of openness and transparency that the Government tries to represent. We remind Raskovski that if he is not satisfied with the ethical standards of a specific journalistic or media product he can make a complaint to the media self-regulatory bodies. High officials of the Government, and in general public figures, above all from politics, need to have a higher threshold of tolerance when criticized by journalists. They need to know that lawsuits for defamation and insult to journalists are an unpopular method that was used in the past that adversely affected freedom of expression and contributed to Macedonia being poorly rated on the world media freedom indexes, says AVMU and AJM reaction.