The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bujar Osmani, answering a journalist’s question at today’s press conference, whether the name of the cultural club “Ivan Mihajlov” in Bitola, which causes negative feelings among Macedonians, can be brought into the context of hate speech, he said that it is not so, but that it is only a matter of historical interpretation.

According to the head of the Macedonian diplomacy, the club will not be treated according to the requirements in the Protocol for changing the inscriptions on the monuments and other buildings, as well as the parts of the textbooks, which cause negative feelings in Bulgaria.

That would be a wrong approach, because we must not put the different historical interpretations under “hate speech”. Under hate speech, our legislation clearly states what it is – disparagement due to human characteristics and belonging to a group, and I think that if we expand that into historical interpretations, then I think we are opening a field of new risks, said Osmani.

According to the minister, hate speech is aimed at the citizens of neighboring countries to a large extent and that the two governments of Macedonia and Bulgaria, as he says, will have to say “stop” to such a negative trend.