Macedonian Sports Journalist Protests Harassment

Ticket for 2013 World Men's Handball Championship for Barcelona, Spain

A ticket for the 2013 World Men's Handball Championship from Filevski's blog. Photo used with permission.

A prominent Macedonian sports journalist Igor Filevski, who works as a correspondent from Spain, announced [mk] on his blog that he will no longer cover Macedonian sports in order to protest the silence of his colleagues and relevant institutions, who have been patiently ignoring the harassment inflicted on him for daring to cover the malfunctions within the Macedonian Handball Federation, including nepotism and a recent hushed-up scandal of disorganized transportation of the National Team [mk] to the World Men's Championship in Seville and Barcelona.

Filevski points out [mk] that in the past few weeks he has received death threats from officials online [mk] and by the Macedonian delegation members at the event. The only two expressions of concern so far came from the Association of Journalists [en, mk, sq] and activist & media expert Petrit Saracini, who wrote [mk] that the “democratic” silence instead of public outcry and resignations illustrates the state of media freedom in the country, resulting from the implementation of the right-wing “rebirth” on all pores of society since 2006.

2 comments

  • Note regarding the level of nepotism, from the AJM announcement:

    “The insults and the threats of physical assault for the sports journalist Igor Filevski by the handball referee Viktor Nacevski, the son of the Secretary-General of the Macedonian Handball Federation,
    Marjan Nacevski is a rough attack on the media freedom and the dignity of journalists.”

  • Pero

    I have known Igor Filevski for several years. He is the most prominent sport journalist in Macedonia. He is not only a good journalist, but excellent football player. He is also know to for his right foot shoot and excellent goalkeeping skills. In his spare time he likes to read books about the universe and Kama sutra and he loves to cook typical macedonian dishes such as pacha and chvarki.

Cancel this reply

Join the conversation -> Pero

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.