Macedonia Braces for Rival Ethnic Protests

Police spokesperson Ivo Kotevski said that officers were “closely monitoring social networks” ahead of the possible unauthorised protests on Friday and warned that “violent outbursts cannot be tolerated”.

His statement came after an anonymous flyer with the slogan “Macedonia for Macedonians” was distributed via social networks calling on the country’s majority ethnic Macedonians to rally on Friday afternoon in front of the government building “to show the government that we are not tenants in our own state”.

The protest is intended as a response to calls to the Albanian minority to rally again on Friday at the exactly the same time in the Albanian-dominated municipality of Cair, against the terrorism convictions of the alleged Albanian Islamists for the killing of five ethnic Macedonians.

The two rallies’ starting points are about one kilometre from each other, raising fears of renewed clashes in the capital.

Last Friday, running battles erupted on the streets of Skopje as several thousand mostly young Albanian protesters, angered by the verdict in the mass killing trial, tried to storm the Skopje criminal Court but were forced back by police.

Twenty police officers and an unidentified number of protesters were injured during the clashes as police used tear gas, shock grenades and water cannons to disperse the crowd.

Alleged Islamic extremists Alil Demiri, Afrim Ismailovic, Agim Ismailovic, Fejzi Aziri, Haki Aziri and Sami Ljuta were convicted of terrorism over the 2012 killings on June 30. The defence has announced that it will appeal.

The political leaders of the Albanian minority have demanded an internationally-monitored retrial in the case and a public presentation of the...