The police "defend" the freedom of information
The government should seriously advocate for freedom of expression, and not just flatly and in euphoria make statements that it cares about journalists. The government must not allow its employees to behave arbitrarily and violate its principles of work. There is still a lot to be done so that we can talk about media freedom in Macedonia.
This year, Macedonia is ranked 57th in the Reporters Without Borders World Index of Media Freedom, jumping 33 places from 2021. This is the news that two weeks ago was the occasion for the Government to boast about how media freedom has progressed in Macedonia. and journalistic expression.
After only two weeks, another news arrived, this time congratulations to the journalist Sonja Delevska from the digital newsroom SDK.mk. Armed police officers came to her door to summon her for an official interview regarding a complaint from an employee of the Ministry of Justice. She was upset by Delevska's journalistic reporting, which affected her reputation and her health. Imagine, a clerk in Pravda, about whom Delevska wrote, but did not mention her by name or initials, found herself in the text of the journalist and went to the police to report her. The police officers, although incompetent to act, because it is a civil procedure, decided to fulfill the wish of this officer. Wow, what a wonderful way to screw people over. Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl. It is this atmosphere that lifts us up the ladder of the World Index of Media Freedom.
This is the first case for a written text of the Ministry of Interior, although it is not competent to call a journalist for a conversation. Well, well, for everything there is a first time. Just not to become a habit.
The Journalists' Union and the Association of Journalists reacted immediately, strongly condemning this action of the police and asking the Ministry of Interior to conduct an internal investigation. The Ministry of Interior responded that there would be an investigation. Let's just hope that the investigation will not be forgotten or that the police officers will hit someone's friends or political partners, so that everything will be covered up. Because in our country everything is like that. What a law, what coppers, if you have a friend in the right place.
And so, right in this country of ours, we will rejoice that something went well, an incident immediately comes to the surface as with this clerk and all efforts and desires fall into the water. I do not know those policemen who decided to fulfill her wish that they were thinking at that moment? Come on, we will go to the door of this journalist, we will scare her a little and nothing to anyone. And the wolf is full and the sheep are numbered. Did they not expect that the editorial office in which Delevska is employed will react publicly? Did not they expect that the journalists, colleagues of Delevska, who are the voice of the public, will raise their voice for this undemocratic act and an attempt to silence them?
The government should seriously advocate for freedom of information, and not just flatly and in euphoria make statements that it cares about journalists. The government must not allow its employees to behave arbitrarily and violate its principles of work. There is still a lot to be done so that we can talk about media freedom in Macedonia. In conditions when a large number of journalists work with an unresolved status, with low salaries, under pressure and threats, with censorship and self-censorship, one cannot talk about democracy. The situation of journalists in the country is desperate. Despite the appeals of the journalists' associations, the Government never once sat down to talk seriously and advocate for something to change in the media sphere. They did not deceive us that changes will be made in the Criminal Code, which will treat the attack on a journalist as an attack on an official, so that not every fool can threaten and intimidate us for something we have written, but it also hangs. We are still waiting for the changes. Until then, anyone can tell reporters what they want and can do. Anyone can report a journalist, write everything to him on social networks, insult him with abusive words…
Journalists must not give up their rights, we must not allow our profession to die completely, even though we are moving in that direction. We must fight for our rights to the end, to be loud in our demands, not to stop and not to allow someone else to experience what happened to our colleague Delevska. Governments come and go. We are the ones who stay and fight on. Long live freedom!