Three newspapers that have been critical of the Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski will be shut down as of July 2, 2011, for tax violations, with journalists raising alarm this is a crack-down on press freedom.

"The Cabinet of Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski wants to destroy our three newspapers and television A1 because we are critical of his government," Macedonian journalist Branko Gerovski has told BGNES regarding the shutting down of the Macedonian newspapers Spic, Vreme, and Koha Ere.

"We have been under police pressure for eight months, and now we are being pressured by the taxation authorities as well. We have been placed in a severe isolation, and are working in abnormal conditions. In spite of all of that, we continue to cover fairly and critically the developments in Macedonia," Gerovski is quoted as saying.

He claims that the accusations of the Macedonian tax authorities for the three newspapers and the A1 TV station are fake, and that they initially demanded EUR 4 M, but subsequently requested a higher sum – EUR 10 M, including EUR 1 M allegedly owed to the Macedonian state by the three newspapers, and EUR 9 M – by A1 TV.

"With this change, they are trying to scare off potential investors that our management is trying to secure to save our media. The authorities want to present us as a risky investment. Who is going to invest money when tomorrow their demands can grow to EUR 12 M?" journalist Gerovski said.

He further declared that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is staging an all-out operation to put all media in Macedonia under control.

"They are attacking not only our three newspapers and A1 TV, but also other papers, including the publications of the German group WAZ. The authorities have already managed to shut down the Globus newspaper, and they are now focusing on Utrinski Vesnik, where our colleagues are protesting constantly," Gerovski explained.

"There is no freedom of speech in our country. The authorities are trying to create another reality with some kind of patriotic rhetoric. And the reality is that Macedonia is at the bottom of all rankings in freedom of media, according to NGOs such as Freedom House and Reporters without Borders. There is no democracy without media freedom. We are no longer part of Europe, we have descended to the level of the most terrible African dictatorships such as Robert Mugabe's in Zimbabwe," he stated.

Early this week, the Macedonian tax authorities have distrained the bank accounts of the three newspapers Spic, Vreme, and Koha Ere and A1. The publisher of the four media, businessman Velija Ramkovski has been jailed since 2010.

What has been described as a crackdown on media freedom in Macedonia comes just after Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski and his rightist VMRO-DPMNE party won the early parliamentary elections on June 5, 2011, and just as the Macedonian authorities are shocking their neighbors with the erection of an Alexander the Great statue, and a monument of medieval Bulgarian Tsar Samuil.

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