In days when extremism, racism and nationalism are receiving fierce condemnation around the world, the opposition party VMRO-DPMNE is ever more expressing its xenophobic views, with the purpose of spreading panic and fear among the citizens before the local elections.

This time on the Facebook group Aerodrom in my heart, a photo of refugees has been published with a text that says that SDSM plans to build a refugee camp on its territory once it takes over the local government in the Municipality!

Jasmina Golubovska, from the non-governmental organization “Legis”, stated for CIVIL Media that the recent developments concerning the refugee crisis and the increased xenophobia and fear among the population are being caused by the opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, by starting an active campaign before the local elections, to abuse the refugees as an object for manipulating with the citizens.

“Primarily, it concerns settlements, where unfortunately, there is greater concentration of hatred, regardless of whether it is about a refugee crisis that VMRO-DPMNE is bringing up, or about ethnic issues in the country, somehow the settlement of ‘Aerodrom’ has always been a place where fear, xenophobia, hatred and violence have been spread, due to unverified information that this party is spreading. It began with the parliamentary session that Vlatko Gjorchev organized, a week and a half ago, which he used as a chance to talk about something that has neither any legal validity, nor is in force, or adopted, namely, it is being considered by non-governmental organizations, upon the proposal of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy”, says Golubovska.

According to her, what is lacking is punishment for such behavior of the parliamentarians, who are not only abusing their function as MPs and representatives of the citizens, but also of the commissions where they have the function of a president, such as the case with Gjorchev and the Commission of Labor and Social Policy.

“First of all, I call on the President of the Assembly, Talat Xhaferi, to take measures for violation of the Rules of Procedure on these issues, as well as for abuse of these topics in Parliament. In regards to the public, I ask them to remain reasonable and to carefully follow this information, as there are local elections coming up, and the refugees obviously, for one political party, in this case, VMRO-DPMNE, will be an attempt for defocusing”, stated Golubovska.

Last week, the Union of Youth Forces of VMRO-DPMNE in Stip was also spreading such propaganda, which posted on its Facebook page a photomontage of migrant children in Muslim clothes and children with scarves, with the following text written above the photo: “A school day following the settling of migrants. Will you allow for the future education to look like this”?

CIVIL – Center for Freedom strongly condemns every expression of hatred, nationalism, racism and xenophobia and is calling on the institutions to decisively deal with such extremist groups.

At the same time, CIVIL is urging the citizens not to fall to such nationalistic propaganda of VMRO-DPMNE and to information that is coming concerning the migrants and refugee crisis, but to take the information with great reserve and rationality.

CIVIL Media, today, went on the streets of Skopje and talked with the citizens about the refugees.

In terms of the question on whether they are afraid of the refugees, they say that “the refugees are also people, having fled from torture…”. One of the interlocutors says: “The refugees and the Albanian Platform are just an advertisement of the opposition, it is nonsense, where is the Albanian Platform now?” They are just games of the opposition, for scaring the people before local elections, so that they can cheat and steal!”

Маја Ivanovska