A Bloody Night in Parliament
I don’t know for sure when the special operations police entered the building, using tear gas to expel the rioters. While they were evacuating us, I did another live report. The injured future prime minister joined a rival MP in checking whether everyone was alright. Outside we were welcomed by a number of journalists. My phone rang again. Colleagues from Al Jazeera English were asking for a live report about the events of that night.
Today I can easily calculate the length of most news reports. But even now, I can’t estimate how long the events of that evening lasted. For me, it was the longest evening of my life. Sixteen people, including highly-ranked police officers, members of parliamentary security and rioters were sentenced to more than 200 years in prison over what became known as “Bloody Thursday” in Macedonia. The court ruled that police had intentionally defied their obligations and that the attack had been planned.
But the court in Skopje recently rejected journalists’ lawsuits against the state, citing a “lack of evidence.” They had sought financial compensation and non-pecuniary damages. The trial of the organisers of the attack, highly-ranked members of the VMRO-DPMNE party, is ongoing. One of the defendants is former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.
Four years later, on April 25, 2021, I am reporting live outside parliament. Ten-thousand people are protesting behind me demanding freedom for the people convicted of storming into the press centre of the Macedonian parliament on that evening when I could easily have lost everything.
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