The Ministry of Defense has made corrections to the competition for high school students who were asked to write an essay, in Macedonian and English, titled “NATO and I”, marking the occasion of the 70th anniversary since the creation of NATO and before the accession of North Macedonia into the military alliance, reports “Portalb.mk “.
The competition initially envisioned the essays to be written only in English and Macedonian, but after a telephone conversation between a journalist from Portalb.mk and representatives from the Ministry of Defense, they deleted that part and extended the deadline for another five days.
“We have regulated this, and now every student can send an essay in his native language, and in order not to violate anyone’s rights, we have continued the deadline for handing in the essays for another 5 days or 4th of April,” the Ministry of Defense tells Portalb.mk
Yesterday, the Alliance for Albanians reacted to the situation and accused the Ministry of Defense of failing to implement the Albanian language.
“The Ministry has ignored and violated the Law on the Albanian language, ruling that this activity and the authors of the essays should only be in Macedonian. The failure to implement the law and ignore the Albanian language in this situation, suggests that North Macedonia is continuing with its old mentality, proving that it doesn’t have a sincere aim to respect and join other democratic countries where the message of equality and justice for all is spread, “says the Alliance for Albanians.
