What happened: SIA Ohrid pressed criminal charges against O.D. (23) from the village of Labunishta, Struga on reasonable grounds to suspect that he committed the crime “Spreading Racial and Xenophobic Material via an Information System”. On 31.03.2020, the reported posted offensive and threatening content on the social network Facebook and spread racial and xenophobic statements, promoting or inciting hatred and discrimination against a certain group of citizens.
Brief description of the incident with bias indicators: In this incident the bias motive is ethnic origin, with the bias indicators being:
- Ethnic origin – the perpetrator spread hate speech against a different ethnic community;
- Manner – social networks, particularly Facebook, are becoming a very common space for committing this type of incidents.
Impact on the victims and the community: These types of incidents call into question the general safety in the country and the cohabitation among different ethnic groups in society.
