Police arrested two men from Bitola and Veles in connection to the Public Room case, the Interior Ministry confirmed to MIA.
“Measures are taken involving other people in coordination with the public prosecutor’s office to sanction the perpetrators,” said the Ministry.
Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski confirmed the arrests in a Facebook post.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Thursday, that a request has been sent to the Telegram social medium demanding that the Public Room group chat be removed and that they will keep insisting on their demand being met.
If the encrypted messaging services doesn’t shut down the Public Room group, where private-owned photos and child pornography is shared, Zaev said that ways to block or restrict the app in the country will be considered until the service starts cooperating with local authorities to identify those sharing illegal content.
“As government, it doesn’t cross our mind to censor communications, but this is entirely different. We have to protect our citizens,” the PM said writing on Facebook, adding he hoped it won’t come to that and Telegram will respond to the request and start to cooperate.
“To all those sharing photos of others in that group – stop doing it right this moment and leave the group. At the end of the day, we will identify you, you will be charged and held accountable for what you had done,” PM Zaev urged.
Earlier, the Interior Ministry said police arrested two men in connection to the Public Room case.
In the Facebook post, Zaev also expressed solidarity and support of the victims of online abuse. “I also support all those who condemned the online abuse. Privacy protection is part of the genetic code of every human being, and while marking the Private Data Protection Day, we are once again called on to fight against this phenomenon,” he concluded.
