What happened: SIA Bitola pressed criminal charges against J.F. (42) from Prilep on reasonable grounds to suspect that he committed the criminal offence “Spreading Racial and Xenophobic Material via an Information System”. The individual reported posted a photograph on his Facebook profile of busses transporting Macedonian citizens arrived from abroad and quarantined in Bitola and publically called for these individuals to be burned alive and killed on 28.03.2020, at 6:51 a.m.
Brief description of the incident with bias indicators: In this incident the bias motive is ethnicity, with the bias indicators being:
- Pattern of previous incidents – inciting and spreading ethnic hatred and inciting violence on social networks is becoming a more common method for committing hate crimes.
Impact on the victims and the community: These types of incidents call into question the general safety and cohabitation among the different ethnic groups in society.
