At Thursday’s reception for the diplomatic corps, President Stevo Pendaorovski also spoke about the attacks on minister Rasela Mizrahi by the government. He demanded the attacks to stop and be careful not to hurt the feelings of a nation or religion.

Not long ago, unfortunately, in our public discourse, isolated comments were disseminated which were interpreted by the members of the Jewish community as anti-Semitic. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, but we all must beware of its legitimate limits when one’s comment can hurt the feelings of a nation or religion by drawing wrong historical parallels. A period of campaigning is ahead of us, accompanied of heated pre-election rhetoric. For these reasons, I call for greater vigilance and restraint, because, literally, my people have never in history been associated with any anti-Semitic sentiments and attitudes, the President said.