Today’s evening protest in Skopje against Nikola Gruevski and VMRO-DPMNE autocracy, organized by a number of NGO as well as individual activists, were the largest demonstration since FYROM independence in 1991. The main unifying goal was anger about phone-calls presented to a wider audience, which contained inhumane treatment of the case of Martin Neškovski, a young man who was beaten to death in 2011 only because of his wish to come closer to Nikola Gruevski during a rally in city of Skopje.
The several thousand strong rally, after being confronted with heavily-armored police forces that secured the wider perimeter of the government building in Skopje, decided to proceed with the protest in front of the nearby parliament building. Unlike yesterday’s rally, no major confrontation issued.
If banners, flags and symbols upon them are evidence, it can be said that participants of this rally brought citizens from variety of political options and various ethnicities, the later being unusual in local political milieu. During yesterday protests, the police used force, including water-cannons and ‘shock-bombs’.
A number of policemen stormed the “Miladinovci Brothers” library yesterday and used force upon students and other users of the library, an act that resulted in two dozen hospitalized readers.
