The Skopje Court of Appeals in the capital, Skopje, on January 15, 2015, reduced Tomislav Kezarovski’s prison term from four and a half years to two years, but ordered the journalist to serve the remaining time–four and a half months–in jail, according to regional and international press. Kezarovski had been serving the term under house…
On June 21, Macedonian journalists, intellectuals, artists, and free thinkers breathed a sigh of relief. The U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, visited Skopje and held one of the most straightforward and honest press conferences on the state of freedom of…
The European Union accession process has been hailed as the best tool in the arsenal of democracy promotion. By adhering to the acquis communautaire, the EU’s total body of legislation, and to the Copenhagen criteria that define the democratic nature of the EU, candidate countries are supposed to perfect their political transition before joining “the…
Armenia Germany/Poland Poland Bosnia Italy Portugal Bulgaria Lithuania Romania Croatia Macedonia Serbia Cyprus Moldova Switzerland Denmark Netherlands ARMENIA • On May 25, authorities denied independent television station A1+ a broadcasting license for the 12th time. According to press reports, the National Commission on Television and Radio justified the rejection by saying that competitors submitted stronger…
December 11 Jonathan C. Randal, The Washington Post The U.N. International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY) ruled to limit compelled testimony from war correspondents. The decision, announced at the tribunal’s Appeals Chamber, came in response to the appeal by former Washington Post reporter Jonathan C. Randal, who had been…
Emboldened by the growing number of U.S. troops in the country, President Askar Akayev has used the threat of international terrorism as an excuse to curb political dissent and suppress the independent and opposition media in Kyrgyzstan. Compliant courts often issue exorbitant damage awards in politically motivated libel suits, driving even the country’s most prominent…
Lingering political instability, pervasive official corruption, and interethnic tension kept Macedonia on edge in 2002. Sporadic clashes between the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian rebels continued despite a peace accord signed in August 2001 to end the country’s short-lived civil war, which began in January 2001. As a result, independent journalism remains a tenuous and…