At today’s protests in Skopje related to the blockades of private bus companies, the police grossly violated the right of journalists to film and report. According to the testimony of her colleague FazileHalili from TV21, she used her mobile phone to record a part of the protest where the police were dragging a woman. At that moment, one of the police officers in uniform approached her and told her that she was not allowed to make a video recording. In a threatening tone, he told her to immediately delete the recording, informed the Association of Journalists of Macedonia.
“Delete the recordings because you have no right to record” said the police officer, to which the colleague told him that she is a journalist and that she not only has the right but also her duty to inform the public. But the policeman told her immediately, right in front of him, to delete the recording from all the albums in the phone, wanting to be sure that there were no traces of anything recorded.
Exercising pressure to erase and delete video and photo materials by the police represents a direct violation of Article 16 of the Constitution, which prohibits censorship and guarantees free access to information, freedom to receive and share information.
