The Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) condemns the humiliating attitude of independent candidate for mayor of the Municipality of Kicevo, Fatmir Limani, towards journalist Salije Sadiku from TV21 and demands for public actors to pay attention to their attitude, especially towards women journalists in the country.
Namely, while journalist Salije Sadiku was reporting about the local elections in North Macedonia, she faced an unpleasant situation accompanied with aggressive speech and accusations by the independent candidate from Kicevo, Fatmir Limani, towards her personally and TV21. Colleague Sadiku was present at the event with the purpose to convey information to the citizens from the election cycle and instead of receiving an answer from the candidate, she was offensively insulted and then booed by the crowd.
According to colleague Sadiku, about a hundred supporters of Limani who were present at the time of the incident, on the night of October 17, had been applauding when the incident took place. In her reaction to the office of the AJM, Sadiku explained that: “On Sunday, the news crews of TV21 together with the teams of TV Klan and MTV were at Limani’s headquarters at 8.00 pm, where the chief of cabinet Bejtula Emini told us that they were still not ready, but also that they would wait for the results. After several hours after I had gone back to get a statement from the candidate, he got up in front of those who were present and with a high-pitched voice started yelling at me with the words: “You are the worst thing that has happened to the citizens, you are bloodsuckers. It’s your fault that Kicevo has come to this situation. You are with the government and work one-sidedly”. I stepped back and at that moment those who were present, which were more than a 100 people, started applauding loudly and started yelling uuuuu at me…”, stated Sadiku.
Such attitude towards journalists who are on a task on the ground is unacceptable and raising awareness of candidates for mayors and of all political actors in the election cycle towards journalists is necessary, because now the second round of local elections follows in multiple municipalities.
We consider that if such incidents are tolerated in the future that there is a risk of encouraging new, more serious violence against journalists, thus additionally endangering their safety, the right to freedom of expression and the right to informing the citizens.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
