TROLL OF THE MONTH: Prime Minister Edi Rama in Albania
The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Prime Minister Edi Rama was questioned during a parliamentary session …
Women may be beautiful, but is that really a topic for discussion in Parliament?
This raises a critical question about how we perceive and treat women in the public sphere, particularly women in politics. Once again, we witness how seemingly harmless comments, such as calling a woman “beautiful,” reveal deep-seated sexism that continues to undermine their participation in public life. In a recent session of the Serbian Parliament, a …
Hate speech and ethnic divisions in an anti-Albanian campaign on social media
An anti-Albanian campaign was launched on social media following a post on Facebook from a suspicious closed account. In the Facebook post, the author, without giving further details, said that at the cash register in the “Kipper” market in Gjorce Petrov, a saleswoman refused to tell the prices of the products in the Macedonian language, …
Monthly Monitoring Highlights August: Ethnic and religious divisions, attacks against the media, journalists, and activists
During August, the RDN monitoring team detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month, we’ve witnessed hate fueled by ethnic and religious divisions, coupled with targeted attacks against the media, journalists, and activists. Ethnic hate in North Macedonia and Albania This month in North Macedonia, social media users called for the boycotting of …