TV Kanal 5 filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Council of Europe, which in the latest report, according to the television, slandered Kanal 5 for alleged hate speech directed at Bulgaria, apostrophized with the term “cheap prostitutes”.
The manager of the television channel, Ivan Mirchevski, pointed out before the Civil Court that this defamation causes financial and legal uncertainty for the company in the future.
“I would like to quote you very briefly the moment which is extremely disputed and extremely irresponsible by the people who wrote this report. In point 31 in the section on hate speech, it is said that anti-Bulgarian hate speech in our country is also a common occurrence in Macedonia according to the Bulgarian interlocutors, with whom the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) met. I will not go into the definition of what Bulgarian interlocutors mean here, whether they are Macedonian Bulgarians, i.e. Macedonians with a Bulgarian self-awareness or, again, Bulgarians from Bulgaria, which will be terribly disputed, but this paragraph, in this point at the very end, says that ECRI also so he heard allegations, be careful, that the second term, the hate speech, which is “cheap prostitutes” is used occasionally on Kanal 5 public television station,” Mirchevski pointed out.
He emphasizes that hate speech in Kanal 5 neither existed nor will exist. Mirchevski informed that through their legal representative Toni Menkinovski they requested legal protection from the MFA in November, and on December 7 they addressed the Office of the Council of Europe in Macedonia, where they asked to apologize and correct their report in order not to continue the damage that what they do. But they did not receive an answer.
