What happened: SEI Shtip submitted criminal charges against I.I. (42) from Makedonska Kamenica on
the grounds of reasonable suspicion for having committed the criminal offence “Spreading Racial and
Xenophobic Material via an Information System”. In the course of March 2019, the person in question
posted on the content on his Facebook profile, thus committing the criminal offence.
Date, time and place of incident: Spread hatred via Facebook.
Source of information: MOI’s daily newsletter.
Victim(s) involved: No victims.
Type of crime(s): Spreading Racial and Xenophobic Material via an Information System (Article 394-d, CC
of RNM).
Perpetrator(s): One identified perpetrator, I.J. from Kumanovo.
Brief description of the event with bias indicators: In this incident the bias motive is ethnicity, with the bias
indicators being:
1. Ethnicity – the perpetrator spread hate speech against a different ethnic community;
2. Pattern of previous incidents – very often social media, particularly Facebook, are used as a
platform for this type of incidents.
Status of case: Criminal charges pressed.
Response of the local authorities: The perpetrator was detained and criminal charges were pressed against
him for having committed the criminal offence pursuant to Article 394-d from CC of RNM. The criminal
offence was qualified as a hate crime.
Impact on the victims and the community: These types of incidents call into question the general safety in
the country and the co-existence among different ethnic groups in society.
