Views from Abroad on Protests Against Police Violence

Ordinary people's reactions to the protests against police brutality in Macedonia indicate the strength of the grip of the traditional media, which are not very keen on relaying such “unpopular” news, and highlight the opportunities for solidarity once the information gets through.

Jovana Tozija, a Macedonian woman residing in Germany, wrote [mk, en] about the reactions of her friends:

Many of my international friends asked what’s going on in Macedonia after they saw me spamming on Facebook with links to sites with strange letters and when they saw that I'd changed my profile picture. I briefly explained to them the incident with the murder of Martin Neshkovski. Here are their responses and my personal analysis of their initial instant reactions.

A Russian woman: So? The police killed a man. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? There is nothing you can do about it.

Obviously, the awareness about freedom of speech in this country is not on the highest level. I don’t know if it is because they are afraid or because it is not developed enough. But I do know that there is over-centralized power of the oligarchs and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

An Iranian man: Only one person was killed?

This was his instant reaction. It’s not easy for him as well. He has seen worse. Last year, during the green revolution in Iran, the government was killing young people, just because [Ahmadinejad] would not recognize the electoral fraud. A bunch of progressive young people were protesting and they failed. Many of them were killed and Ahmadinejad is still in power.

A German woman: How can it be that for 2 days it was not known who the boy was and the case was not reported?

for full story go to Global Voices - Filip Stojanovski