In the picture: the team of the BGNES Agency - Anton Stankov (L) and Velislav Iliev (R)
Today, the border police of North Macedonia did not allow the team of the BGNES Agency - Anton Stankov and Velislav Iliev - to enter the territory of the country.
After repeatedly going back and forth to the Delchevo border crossing building /Stanke Lisichkovo from the Bulgarian side - note ed./ the policeman on duty refused to allow the team to enter on the grounds that he "did not have permission from the Ministry of Information in Skopje". Since the beginning of the year, the same team has repeatedly visited the RSM without having special accreditations or other types of permissions from the Ministry of Information. After a long "check", the embarrassed border police officers at the Delchevo border crossing explained to the BGNES team that "first, he should make a request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, which, after assessment, should turn to the Macedonian Ministry of Information, which after to decide whether to give us accreditation'.
On the European continent, similar practices to hinder the work of journalists exist only on the territory of Belarus.
This is not the first such incident of not allowing Bulgarian journalists into RSM. This practice was first introduced during the time of Branko Crvenkovski and sharply escalated during the previous administration when dozens of Bulgarian journalists were not allowed to cover the anniversary of Gotse Delchev's birth. At the time, the motive was "power cut", but the next day, the interior minister, Oliver Spasovski, rewarded the police for a job well done. | BGNES
