Language Law Tests Ethnic Relations in North Macedonia Again

One of them is the expected verdict in the high-profile case codenamed 'Monster', which deals with the gruesome killing of five ethnic Macedonians in 2012 during Orthodox Easter near Skopje, in which ethnic Albanians are on trial.

The second is the issue of the Language Law, which extends the official use of the Albanian language in a country where the Albanian minority makes up around a quarter of the population of 2.1 million.

The Language Law has been controversial since first adopted in 2018, but the issue lay dormant for much of this year. However it returned in December to cause a stir among the governing parties, and has the potential to cause more ripples on the political scene in 2019.

Albanian, Macedonian and Turkish flags together during a rally in Skopje. Archive photo: EPA/NAKE BATEV.

Wiretaps fail to illuminate mass murder case

The high-profile case of a fivefold murder in Skopje, for which six ethnic Albanians were found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to life in prison in 2014, has stirred up a lot of ethnic tension in a country that went through an armed conflict between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and the security forces back in 2001.

News of the murders sparked occasionally protests by groups of ethnic Macedonians who blamed the killings on members of the large Albanian community in the country.

In April 2018, the murder case was reopened on the request of the Special Prosecution, which the defence welcomed.

The defence has long insisted that the accused may have been scapegoats, and that the previous government led by the right-wing VMRO DPMNE party might have been involved, in an attempt to show that state institutions could clear up the case efficiently.

The defence...