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Macedonia

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From the Communiqué

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CRIMINAL DEFAMATION LAW REPEALED

Journalists in Macedonia can no longer be jailed for defamation offences, thanks to an amendment to the criminal code passed by Macedonia's parliament on 10 May 2006, says Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).

MACEDONIA URGED TO STRENGTHEN DRAFT TRANSPARENCY LAW

ARTICLE 19 is putting pressure on the Macedonian government over a proposed law it says contains "serious flaws" that must be speedily addressed if citizens are to gain the right to access information held by public bodies.

PUBLIC INFORMATION LAW ALARMS IPI, IFJ & ARTICLE 19

Macedonia’s draft Public Information Law will have extremely negative consequences for press freedom, say ARTICLE 19, the International Press Institute (IPI), and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The organisations see a number of serious problems with the text, starting with the conditions outlined for limiting freedom of expression. The European Convention on Human Rights does permit some restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and information. However, Macedonia's draft law fails to qualify these restrictions by making clear that they must be "necessary in a democratic society."

MEDIA BIAS REPORTED DURING ELECTIONS

The media in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) provided diverse coverage of the parliamentary elections in October and November 1998, but ethnic or political bias was prevalent, according to monitoring done by the European Institute for the Media (EIM). In its final report, issued in January 1999 and entitled "Monitoring the media coverage of the October-November 1998 parliamentary elections in FYROM", the EIM writes, "the FYROM electronic media outlets, through their diversity, provided the electorate with a reasonably complete picture of the issues, parties and candidates in the elections." However, the EIM noticed "a general tendency" for the electronic media "to focus on parties from their own ethnic community," so that Macedonian parties received substantially more coverage from Macedonian-language media and likewise with the Albanian parties. The EIM noted a similar tendency in the print media to show bias by focussing "on parties from the ethnic community of their readers." For example, the partly state-owned newspaper "Nova Makedonija" "showed a pronounced anti-opposition slant in spite of its obligation... to report without bias." The EIM concludes, "The new government should refrain from attempting to control or influence editorial and managerial decisions in "Nova Makedonija"."