What happened: On 22.10.2018, SIA Skopje, in collaboration with the Sector for Computer Crime and
Digital Forensics under the Ministry of Interior will submit criminal charges against 38-year-old A.N. from
the Skopje village of Konjari, for a posted comment on the Facebook Social Media Platform which caused
endangering of the safety of the members of the Parliament of North Macedonia and for spreading racist
and xenophobic materials through a computer system, i.e. for reasonable suspicions of him committing the
crime under Article 144 “Endangering the safety” and under Article. 394-d “Spreading racist and xenophobic
materials through a computer system” of the Criminal Code, the police informed.
Date, time and location of the incident: On the Facebook Social Media Platform, on 21.10.2018
Source of information: MoI’s daily newsletter.
Victim(s) involved: Apart from material damage, there were no victims in this incident.
Type of crime(s): Spreading racist and xenophobic materials through a computer system (Article 394-g
para. 1, CC) and Endangering the safety (Article. 144 paragraph 4 CC).
Perpetrator(s): A.N. (38) from the village of Konjari, Skopje region
Brief description of the event with bias indicators: In this incident the bias motive is political affiliation
or political convictions, and the bias indicators are:
1. Pattern of previous incidents – incidents where such crimes were committed via social media had
previously been registered as well.
Status of the case: ОЈО criminal charges pressed to the competent PPPO.
Response of the local authorities: To the request submitted to MoI in relation to this incident, asking
whether there are indicators verifying hate crime in this case, we got a response in January 2019, stating that
in regard to this case, they submitted criminal charges for the crimes under Article 394-d and Article 144
paragraph 4 to the competent PPO for further action.
Impact on the victims and the community: This incident calls into question the general political stability
in the country.
