Flag-Burning in Genoa Angers Macedonia Albanians

Members of the Macedonian Albanian community, one-quarter of the country's population, said they felt insulted by the torching of their flag in Genoa last week and are calling for the punishment of the perpetrators.

“The people who did this should be locked away for good,” Naim Iljazi, 29, a cab driver from the capital, Skopje, told Balkan Insight.

At the match last Tuesday, Serbian soccer hooligans cut through fencing and threw flares onto the pitch, forcing the referee to end the Serbia-Italy game. Among other things they torched the Albanian flag, considered by many Macedonian Albanians to be their national flag.

Durim Memedi, 45, a craftsman from Skopje, said he felt furious, watching the flag being burned on TV.
 
“I was cursing when I watched that. It is intolerable," he said. “I work in [Skopje's] old Bazaar, and frequently meet people from different ethnic groups, so I know what mutual respect means," he added. "Burning someone’s flag is completely the opposite [to that] and should be condemned."

In reaction to the incident in Genoa, an ethnic Albanian NGO called “Wake Up” staged a protest in front of the Serbian embassy on Saturday in Skopje.

Police intervention prevented an incident at the rally where protesters staged a fake football match in front of the embassy.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Albanian football fans in the mainly Albanian town of Kicevo, at a match between two Macedonian premium league teams, Shkendia and Napredok, took down the Macedonian flag from the stadium's mast and replaced it with the Albanian eagle. Youtube footage of that event appeared shortly after but was later deleted.

A police spokesman, Ivo Kotevski, told Balkan Insight on Monday that the perpetrators would face charges.

Last September, Kosovo football fans burned the Macedonian flag at a local football match to express their anger over the way that the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts had portrayed Albanian history in a new Macedonian Encyclopedia. The book has since been withdrawn.