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a national initiative "I do not open the door", urging citizens to block the process by refusing to let the census takers into their homes.
They are convinced that the census
will be falsified, talking of a possible conspiracy between Zaev and Ali Ahmeti, leader of the junior ruling party the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union of Integration (DUI), and claiming the percentage of ethnic Albanians in the country has been determined in advance.
They are concerned the census will show a higher number of ethnic Albanians than previously estimated, which could give them more rights. The Ohrid agreement, concluded in 2001, includes a provision that any language spoken by more
than 20% of the population becomes an official language alongside the Macedonian language at the municipal level. In 2018, Albanian became the
second official language in the country. Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi from the DUI has called on Albanian emigrants to mobilise and to register themselves in large numbers, sparking claims by VMRO-DPMNE that the government plans to hold the census as a political, not a statistical operation.
“It is clear to the public that this census aims to satisfy the needs of certain ethnic communities by [the ruling party] SDSM and PM Zaev,” VMRO-DPMNE’s deputy head and MP Aleksandar Nikoloski said. He claims that in return, the SDSM will get support from ethnic parties to pass key laws in the parliament, where it has a fragile majority.
“VMRO-DPMNE is not against the census, but it is against a fake and rigged census,” underlined Nikoloski.
The Synod, the highest body of the
Macedonian Orthodox Church, also join the calls for the census to be postponed, saying that the epidemiological situation in the country is not good. The number of new infections started
to increase in recent weeks when the British variant of coronavirus arrived in the country.
bne IntelliNews talked to some people to take the pulse of the general opinion about the census and the most of
them said that despite the opposition obstructions the government has launched the process and it is now
a done deal.
“VMRO-DPMNE is opposing everything that the government is doing, even the processes, which are positive for the society. The process is needed and there is no excuse for the obstruction,”
a 53-year-old woman from Skopje told bne IntelliNews.
Biden officials say Turkey can be held liable for Erdogan agents’ assaults on protesters in Washington
bne IntelIiNews
The US State Department has sent
a strongly worded brief asking
a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling that Turkey can be held liable for the assaulting of protesters that took place on the day of a White House meeting between Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former US president Donald Trump nearly four years ago, Law&Crime reported on March 10.
“Both the Turkish agents (along with supporters of President Erdogan) and U.S. law enforcement separated the protesters from the Ambassador’s Residence at which President Erdogan had arrived,” counsel for the Justice Department
and the State Department wrote in an 18-page legal brief on March 9.
After the attack, the New York Times reviewed videos and photos to track the actions of 24 men, including armed members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail.
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