What happened: On 13 January 2018, a group of supporters of the basketball club “Shkupi”, in the
sports hall “Shaban Trstena”, in the Skopje residential area of Chair, hurt two policemen, one basketball
player and a technical manager of a club and also hit other players. According to the SIA Skopje, the
incident began at 19:20 hours, after the finish of the match between the basketball club “Shkupi” and
the basketball club “Pelister”. From the stands where the fans of “Shkupi” were seated, a firecracker was
thrown to the bench where the basketball players of “Pelister” were sitting. They retaliated by throwing
a plastic bottle full of water towards the fans.
Then the fans of the basketball club “Shkupi” skipped over the fence between the stands and
stadium and attacked several of the “Pelister” baskeball players, wherey the technical manager of the
club and one of the players sustained injuries, along with two of the uniformed police officers.
A public prosecutor was immediately informed about the case.
Date, time and location of the incident: 13 January 2018, 19:20, “Shaban Trstena” Sports Hall, in the
residential area Chair, in Skopje.
Source of information: The electronic media outlet libertas.mk.
Victim(s) involved: several people sustained injuries, 2 of whom were police officers, 1 basketball
player and 1 technical manager of a club.
Type of crime(s): Bodily injury (Article 131, CC), Violence (Article 386, CC), “Assaulting an official
while performing security duties” ( Article 383, CC)
Perpetrators: several perpetrators.
Brief description of the event with bias indicators: In this incident, the bias motive is ethnicity,
while the bias indicators are:
1. Difference in ethnicity – the victims were of Macedonian ethnicity, while the assailants were of
Albanian ethnicity and members of the fan club “Shverceri” (smugglers).
2. Location – the incident occurred in a sports hall, after a match.
Status of the case: unknown
Response of the local authorities: MoI has no information on this incident.
Impact on the victims and the community: This incident calls into question the ethnic co-existence
of the two major ethnic communities in the country.
