Macedonia’s A1 TV Garners Support

The TV station launched the campaign last week, and several days later began broadcasting live in front of the government building in protest at a court decision to freeze its accounts.

A1 says that the move to block the accounts is aimed at shutting down the TV, and it has accused the centre-right government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of influencing the court ruling.

The station has collected signatures across the country of two million, opened a Facebook campaign page and let people express their support by phone.

Meanwhile, the EU ambassador to the country, Erwan Fouere, expressed his concern over the A1 dispute and the general state of media freedom in the country.

“I do hope and pray that the ultimate objective [of the account freeze] is not to create conditions so difficult for the journalists that A1 would have to close down,” Fouere told media on Sunday after arriving in the country from a trip to Slovenia.

“This would be a tragic blow to the independence of the media and would also undermine the credibility of the government’s commitment to respect for independent media and journalists, which has been an important call reflected in the recent EC progress report,” Fouere said.

The opposition has also expressed its dissatisfaction with the state of media freedom in Macedonia. On Friday, nearly all of the country's opposition parties launched a parliament boycott, arguing that the move to shut down media outlets meant "death for a democracy".

But Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki argued that media freedom in the country is not in jeopardy, and the government has denied allegations that it attempting to shut down the influential A1.

“After 20 years of independence I think that we have established good, solid parameters regarding media freedom. However, it depends largely on each individual media outlet and journalist how they will use these principles in order to show their own integrity,” Milososki told media on Sunday after Fouere’s statement.

Macedonia's parliament speaker has set an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss the A1 situation and media freedom in the country. Trajko Veljanovski, who comes from the ranks of the ruling VMRO DPMNE, asked the opposition to participate in the meeting. The opposition did not show up today at a coordination meeting between the political parties.

A1 TV previously faced a threat of closure when police arrested A1's owner, the controversial businessman Velija Ramkovski, on suspicion of financial crimes. Ramkovski, who was detained in December last year, is currently in detention, suspected of tax evasion, financial fraud and money-laundering.