Civil Media, the media branch of the NGO led by Xhabir Deralla, is demanding an apology from Republika over an article published on October 20th, as the party leaders were meeting to discuss the aftermath of Zoran Zaev’s failure to receive a date to open EU accession talks in Brussels.

Civil Media then published a high implausible report that opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski “congratulated to Zoran Zaev on his successes, courage and his responsibility”. Given that Zaev had just returned from Brussels where he suffered total defeat and was unable to receive a date to open EU accession talks despite the humiliating name change he imposed on Macedonia, the story rang false. Shortly after it was denied by Mickoski’s VMRO-DPMNE party.

Republika published a report titled Zaev’s panic is creating nebulous media stories: A pro-Government media outlet (Civil Media) is publishing fake news from the meeting of party leaders. In it, we noted that Civil Media was already involved in publishing fake news, namely the incident during the 2016 general elections when it claimed that a person was arrested for bribing voters in Tetovo – a report that was quickly declared false by Tetovo police, after being used to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the voting process.

The article about the alleged “congratulations” coming from Mickoski to Zaev was signed by the initials Xh.D., which implies that it came from the Civil head himself.

In its letter, Civil says that it denies the untruths published in the Republika article, citing the quotes that “this is not the first time Deralla has spread fake news to benefit SDSM and Zoran Zaev” and that the Civil article contained an “incredible ‘truth’ exclusively published by Civil Media and the activist Xhabir Deralla”. Civil insists that this article harmed its reputation for professional work in the civil sector “enjoyed before the domestic and international public”. Civil demands that Republika apologizes and publishes its denial.

In Republika, we are not clear what exactly is being denied by Civil. Civil Media published the article we cite, signed by Xh.D., and has published the 2016 article which was denied by the Tetovo police.