22 11 2007 Skopje _ Alsat-M TV, a national broadcaster of programmes in Albanian and Macedonian, has accused the Macedonian authorities of subjecting it to various forms of pressure.
In Wednesday’s statement for MakFax news agency, the television station said that the ongoing campaign was aimed at blocking its professional work as an independent broadcaster.
The station’s editor-in-chief, Muhamed Zekiri, told Balkan Insight on Wednesday, that the pressure started in September when the police beat up an Alsat-M cameraman, Igor Ljubovcevski, during the events that followed a much-publicised brawl in the parliament.
According to Zekiri, it continued early this month when Deputy Interior Minister Refet Elmazi publicly threatened that the police would press criminal charges against Alsat-M for the way it covered the police action against an armed criminal group near the north-western town of Tetovo. Alsat-M carried statements by local inhabitants that there were civilians among the killed and injured in the operation.
“Since then, the station has been subjected to constant labour-related and financial checks, and we have reason to suspect that government officials are orchestrating the whole thing”, Zekiri said.
The campaign culminated, according to Zekiri, in a threat from the Minister for Transport and Communications, Mile Janakieski to cancel Alsat-M’s national broadcasting licence.
Zekiri also expressed concern about Friday’s incursion by unidentified people into two of the station’s antenna sites, which disrupted broadcasts in Tetovo and in the northern town of Kumanovo.
The television has notified the National Journalists’ Association and the foreign diplomatic missions in the country about the alleged attempts to curtail its freedom.
Alsat-M TV is the youngest national broadcaster in Macedonia. Its bilingual programming has made it a popular channel.
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