Another day full of outrage on the Macedonian social media. Faced with the major racketeering scandal, the left is perfecting the art of pressuring conservative commentators to apologize for their posts. Meanwhile, the left remains silent when those on their side use threats and insults against the right.
The latest storm in a teacup erupted when journalist Ljupco Zlatev commented on a widely shared report about the assistants to disgraced Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, many of whom will have to return to their home towns where they were local prosecutors before being handpicked by Janeva for the life of crime fighting glamour. Although they should be happy to avoid prosecution, like Janeva, the public widely commented on the new, small town assignments that await the once powerful team of “Charlie’s Angels”.
Zlatev joked about probably the most glamorous of them all – Fatime Fetai – who he said will now have to return to her native village of Bogovinje. Zlatev’s comment was highly critical of the patriarchal small town Albanian communities such as Bogovinje, lamenting the fall of an “icon” of women liberation such as Fatime, who rejoiced in smoking on camera and issuing threats at her defendants.
Although the comment was clearly criticism of “the patriarchy”, the left erupted against Zlatev, who did some of the most critical reporting in the series of scandals surrounding both the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the Zaev Government. Although he’s a journalist, commentators on the left tried to blame the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party of this “insult against all women” and asked the opposition to apologize for Zlatev’s comment. The requests follow the template the left developed over VMRO spokesman Naum Stoilkovski, who was raked over the coals recently after he mocked the inexperienced new Finance Minister Nina Angelovska – comments which were again declared “an insult against all women”.
At the same time, the left remained silent after the latest threat coming from leftist journalist and prominent supporter of both SDSM and the Special Prosecutor’s Office Branko Trickovski. Trickovski, who regularly writes assassination threats against opposition officials, and is protected by the courts, wrote a nasty comment implyng that the children of opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski were fathered by Zoran Zaev.
VMRO-DPMNE has always condemned and continues to condemn discriminating and chauvinistic comments aimed at the women and we demand that all sides who promote it stop doing so. We also demand tha tall political sides condemn the hate speech coming from journalist Branko Trickoski, including his latest Facebook comment, VMRO spokesman Dimitar Arsovski said.
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