Freedom House: Macedonia worse than Kosovo in regard to the freedom of the press

5/5/2012

In the latest Freedom House reports on the freedom of the press, our homeland remains rated as a “partly free” country, while the latest marks show its significant downgrade, and this time are classifying it as the country with the lowest level of freedom of the press in comparison to, for example, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro.

Apart from the noteworthy exceptions, the greatest part of the domestic journalists, in regard to Archbishop Jovan and the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric are almost as by rule spreading hate speech, non-truth and libels. In the reports of Freedom House it is openly indicated that “most of the media… are tied to political interests that influence their content”.

Freedom House has on several occasions made a stance about the disrespect of the religious freedoms in our country, as well as the dispute with the “breakaway Macedonian Orthodox Church”, and in their latest report the reason for which Archbishop Jovan is being persecuted by the domestic judiciary is unquestionably stated, i.e. the report decisively writes that “Bishop Jovan has been repeatedly jailed for his religious activities”.

All this, together with the total absence of an objective and non-unilateral public debate on these burning issues, results in Macedonia being declared a country with the least freedom in the region, a mark that distances it from the European civilization values.

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