Regime journalists need to stay silent

Erol Rizaov

Owners of media, editors and journalists collaborators in the installation of Gruevism, creators, apologists, and servants of the regime, hidden behind imaginary professional standards, after 11 years of degradation of the profession to the bottom every day, and made a mess out of it, try to smuggle out as brave righteous people. They do not have the right, neither professional nor moral, until they recognize their guilt publicly, until they apologize to the public and their colleagues, whom they declared as enemies and foreign mercenaries, and until they pay their sins before the court of honor and before the regular court.
During the reign of Nikola Gruevski, anyone who wrote and publicly acted differently with the condemnation and criticism of the regime was placed on a compromise list. More than a dozen journalists and public figures were declared traitors. Something unheard of and unseen happened in the world, journalists, party members publicly threatened their fellow journalists, even with death threats. Today they should be ignored with indignation when talking about professional standards, when they share lessons about honesty, when they write and talk about crime and corruption, when they demand responsibility.
It must not be forgotten which journalists and media have taken out the images of their colleagues and demonized them as traitors on the front pages, circled them and their closest with red circles, they nailed their photographs on TV screens declaring them as snitches, homosexuals, mercenaries, emphasizing their different national and religious affiliation, calling for a lynch. With their hate speech and tough slander, those journalists are direct participants in conjunction with the regime in the biggest human rights violations, the destruction of the social order, the capture of both the media and the state from the proclamation of independence to date.
With their support, Nikola Gruevski managed to rule for a decade. They are participants in criminal organizations and therefore have to sit in the courtroom together with their commissioners. To those media, those rights of broadcasters, internet portals, newspapers of everything that means public medium of that sort should be deprived of the right to inform the public.
Honestly, there are journalists and columnists, though always in a minority, who are true members of the profession, and with a coexistent attitude throughout the period of tormented and painful transition, sticking strictly to professional and ethical norms. I am not saying that they are flawless, but we can be proud of them because they are direct participants in the dismantling of the rule of terror and the dark politics that took Macedonia a few steps back. The ‘bombs’ by Zoran Zaev, the leader of the opposition, today’s prime minister, were only a confirmation that their articles and public appearances were credible, that they were not foreign mercenaries and enemies, but true journalists. Today it is easily proved because their books and media archives are full of texts that are authentic testimonies. And what’s very important is that none of my list of professionals ever sought and received any privilege from any government or government, nor did any compensation for the damages and humiliations they were inflicted upon. It gives them the qualification of objectivity.
When you read their criticisms of the government and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev for the mistakes made by the ruling government, they should not be perceived as equalizing with the crimes of the previous government. Be sure that they know the differences well. These authors should be read as the necessary prevention never again in Macedonia to repeat tyranny.
A self-confident government should not be afraid of criticism, nor be relieved by praise.