Tomislav Kezarovski

Journalist Tomislav Kezarovski expressed unhappiness on Tuesday at the decision by the prosecution, saying that he had been denied the chance to overturn his conviction at a retrial.

"I want a chance to prove my innocence and be acquitted by the court," Kezarovski told a hearing in Skopje on Tuesday.

The fact that Macedonia is one of the few countries in Europe to have incarcerated a journalist - not for the first time - speaks volumes about the state of media freedom there, Ricardo Gutierrez says.

The 2014 report from the US-based watchdog Freedom House has underlined a global decline in freedom of the press, blaming it on harsher laws and increased violence against journalists.

The report classified the Western Balkans as a region that saw a sharp deterioration in terms of freedom of the press.

The new World Press Freedom Index, surveying the state of media freedom in 2014, has ranked Macedonia at the bottom of the Balkan pile in 117th position out of 180 listed countries.

This is a slight improvement from the previous year when Macedonia was ranked in 123rd place.

The orchestrated campaign against BIRN in Aleksandar Vucic's Serbia was a prime example of the new authoritarianism sweeping the Balkans, which is the rolling back the democratic gains of the 1990s, Balkan expert Florian Bieber said in London on Tuesday.

More than a thousand journalists and supporters who insist that Tomislav Kezarovski is innocent - and that his incarceration is a blow to the freedom of speech - protested on Tuesday in front of the Court of Appeals before later moving in front of Macedonia's government building.

Macedonian journalists on Thursday laid 23 flowers in the city centre, at the spot where police obstructed a protest organized in support of Kezarovski one year ago.

The flowers symbolized 23 years of Macedonian independence and democracy.

A new report by CIVIL – Center for Freedom, an NGO, documents numerous human rights violations over 2013 and at the start of this year in Macedonia.