From 1st of January to 30th of April this year there were 298 complaints about various categories of hate speech lodged at the web platform govornaomraza.mk, shows the monitoring of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, carried out with a special focus on three pilot-municipalities: Shtip, Bitola and Tetovo.
“There was a notable increase of the number of complaints compared to 2019. After the enactment of the state of emergency, the main focus of the parliamentary elections, which were originally scheduled for April, was transfered to the monitoring of hate speech on the basis of the new category – the health situation,” informs the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
The largest number of the complaints – 36% are for hate speech on ethnic grounds, 24% due to the political affiliation and 20% due to the sexual orientation and gender identity.
