Latest Interethnic Incidents Spark Debate in North Macedonia

“There were two incidents and we had no intervention and that is really disappointing. We had to react last week so that the second incident would not happen,” has said for Radio Free Europe Vlado Dimovski from the Center for Interethnic Tolerance in a comment on the recent interethnic incidents in Northern Macedonia.
An incident took place over the last weekend in a Skopje neighborhood where a group of young Macedonians chanted insulting calls to the Albanian community phrases such as: “Dead Albanian, good Albanian!”
The insulting cheers came as a convoy of cars with Albanian wedding guests was passing by on the street decorated with Albanian national flags.
The incident was averted, and police later announced the detention of 16 young people of Macedonian nationality. But for the connoisseurs of interethnic relations this is insufficient.
“Interethnic relations in North Macedonia are very fragile, very little is enough to ignite them,” Dimovski said.
Bashkimi Selmani, a criminal law expert, told Radio Free Europe that this is not the first time that institutions have kept silent or reacted only declaratively on such actions, which could have serious consequences. He even said that the institutions had further aggravated the situation instead of reducing tensions by reacting selectively.
This act has also caused numerous reactions on social networks demanding measures from institutions to prevent such incidents.
“The behavior of ‘Komitët” (fans of the football club “Vardari”) has its source in the system, which gives them power and support regardless of who is in power. As long as the system does not send these hooligans behind bars such phenomena will not stop,” said Ziadin Sela from the Alliance for Albanians party. /argumentum.al